Fragile Balance
Part Two
Rob Makepeace caught up with Jack in the corridor, falling into step with a heavy tread.
"How's the search for a new 2IC going?"
The question was innocuous enough, but Jack still stiffened. "Slowly," he retorted.
"Can't find one to suit you?"
Jack stopped and turned on the other man, "And just what is that supposed to mean?"
Makepeace's expression was all astonishment. It might have even been real. "It's supposed to mean that finding a 2IC who you can trust isn't exactly the easiest task in the world. Jeeze, what did you think I meant, Jack?"
Jack didn't know what he meant. He turned away and kept walking. "Never mind."
The Marine kept pace with him, not bothering to ask if Jack even wanted his presence.
"Okaaaaay," Makepeace drawled, sounding as though he'd been taking lessons from Daniel in making un-comforting noises. "No idea what caused her to go like that?"
"None." Jack didn't want to discuss this. Not here, not now, and certainly not with Robert Makepeace. He'd rather not have to discuss it at all.
Unfortunately, Carter was out of the Air Force and there wasn't a force on heaven or on earth that could bring her back or turn back the clock by forty-eight hours.
"Just asking." Makepeace shrugged. "You going to be at the leaders meeting on Friday?"
"Do I get a choice?"
"You might be off-world."
"No 2IC."
"Then that's up to you, isn't it?" Makepeace walked on as Jack stopped at the elevators, jabbed at the button and swiped his card through the reader.
Then he stuck his hands in his pockets and didn't tap his toe on the ground.
Hammond was still throwing around ideas for a fourth member for SG-1 - another military officer, preferably one with a scientific background.
Jack didn't want another member for SG-1. He'd gotten so used to relying on Carter that turning around to find someone else guarding his six would just be...weird. And Carter was one of the best officers he'd ever had the honour to serve alongside.
The latest batch of replacements Hammond suggested (the first batch had been dismissed out of hand, and Jack suspected Hammond of re-entering some of the first batch into the second) included a vulcanologist, a chemist, two engineers, and a meteorologist.
No astrophysicists at all.
The situation sucked. Royally, supremely, and suckily.
At least Daniel was talking to him again, Jack thought. No cloud without a silver lining. Although, in spite of the pleasantness of not getting 'the Jackson cold shoulder' anymore, Jack would rather have skipped the cloud altogether - silver lining notwithstanding.
Carter had signed the papers in Hammond's office, saluted them both, and left.
Forty-eight hours later, her quarters were cleared out, her locker was empty, and her nameplate was gone. Her username and password had been revoked in the computer systems, the personal effects of her office taken away; she'd shaken the hands of the people she'd worked with, hugged Daniel and Teal'c and saluted Jack. And Jack still didn't quite believe that Carter was gone.
He still wasn't sure he knew what had happened.
He still wasn't sure he believed what had happened.
The technology sat on the briefing room table, incredibly complex stuff in an exceedingly simple-looking package.
Jack nearly crowed with triumph. After seven months of fruitless negotiations with the Tollan pomposities, Daniel had managed to persuade them to part with one of their thingamabobs.
He'd thought the Tollan would never be swayed, although Hammond had evidently differed in opinion. God only knew why. Hammond wasn't one of the fluffy-hearts brigade.
"So what is this device you've brought back, Major?"
"It's a device which disables weapons as the bearers pass by," Carter replied. "It worked on both our weapons and the Goa'uld weapons when Colonel O'Neill and Daniel were defending Ska'ara in the Triad."
"That should come in handy." Hammond said, a smile breaking out on his rubicund face. "Well done, Major, Doctor."
"Thank you, sir." She seemed serene, poised...brittle.
The brittleness hadn't registered until everything around them had shattered.
"So what did you promise them in return, Dr. Jackson?"
Daniel shifted in his chair, oddly unelated by the acquisition of technology. Jack would later realise that only Carter burned with the inner flame of triumph - the rest of SG-1 was cold, damp ash in comparison. "Nothing." He glanced at Sam from under his lashes. "We didn't have to promise them anything, General."
"They gave us the device as a reward for saving them from the Goa'uld?"
Daniel pushed his glasses up, "Actually, they refused to give us any technology at all."
"Well, I'm confused. How did you get the device, Dr. Jackson?"
Jack was watching Carter's face, suddenly remembering an old saw about never really knowing a woman at all.
He didn't need her confirmation that she'd taken the device in the end. He realised it before the outraged disbelief seeped into Hammond's voice and demeanour, before Lieutenant Rumlow blurted out the situation, before her calm voice confirmed that she'd taken by force what the Tollan had been unwilling to render them in diplomatic exchange.
And she met his gaze squarely in a contest of wills, and he was the one who looked away first.
The woman who'd met his gaze was a stranger.
Jack still didn't know what had gotten into Carter. Admittedly, she'd been acting odd those last couple of days. They'd only just returned to active duty after his return from Edora - between her exhaustion from working herself to the bone on the particle accelerator and his own re-acclimatisation to Earth, SG-1 had been put on downtime.
Jack had spent most of it by himself, interspersed with visits from Teal'c. At least Teal'c was still the same. Something had gotten into Carter and Daniel, and Jack didn't have the slightest idea what it was.
Later, as he sat down in Daniel's office, where Daniel was talking about Carter's resignation again, Jack realised he still didn't know what he'd done to get on Daniel's bad side. Not that it really mattered anymore. Whatever had been bugging Daniel had been pushed aside in favour of trying to work out why Carter had done what she'd done.
"Someone's got to go talk to her," Daniel was saying, and Jack finally tuned in. "Something's got to be wrong. Sam just doesn't do that kind of thing! You heard what she was saying during the briefing...that's not Sam..."
"Dr. Fraiser was unable to find anything physiologically wrong with Major Carter."
"Then, I don't know, maybe we should be looking at other things? It's not necessarily physical or hormonal...it might be emotional or stress-related..." Jack caught the quick flicker of the eyes that Daniel sent his way and frowned a little.
"Stress-related?" He let the emotional one slide for the moment.
"She worked very hard to get you back."
That particle accelerator of hers. He guessed she'd worked pretty hard on it. There were vague rumours of Major Carter's dedication to 'the Edora project' around the base, although the people in question always shut up when they saw Jack.
"What, you think the stress of the job cracked her?"
"Stranger things have happened, Jack." Daniel's voice held a note that indicated that Jack should find this significant. Exactly what Jack was supposed to find significant, he had no idea.
Jack put his head in his hands and scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "Look, Daniel, even if there was a reason for her behaviour - and I imagine it would be a pretty damn strong one - we couldn't get her back on SG-1. She's no longer Air Force, they'd never take her back..."
"Not even as a civilian?"
"Unlikely," Jack said. He didn't explain the convoluted reasons upon reasons for Carter's resignation - the fact that they'd probably never take her back under any circumstances since she'd 'proven' herself unworthy as an officer of the Air Force.
The ironic thing was that there were times when Jack had wondered if the technology thieves who'd been using the second Stargate didn't have the idea after all. Take what you needed as you needed it. Obviously not from people like the Madronans, but from people who had it...
Then, after thinking these thoughts, sanity would reassert itself. The only people worth stealing the tech from were those you'd rather were on your side, anyway. You really didn't want them mad at you. And if they weren't willing to give you the stuff, then the next best thing was to make friends with them and have them there to keep the bad guys away when you couldn't keep them out yourself.
Jack hoped that Carter's actions had just been a lapse in judgement - a very fatal one as far as her career was concerned, but it was better than thinking that he'd missed something. The dereliction of his duty in keeping an eye on the state of mind of his people stung as much as the betrayal of the values he'd thought were second-nature to both him and her.
It was easier thinking that than thinking she'd changed so much without Jack noticing it.
Not that Jack had been around to notice lately.
"Don't you want her back on the team, Jack?"
"Don't be stupid, Daniel - of course I want Carter back on the team! But it's not going to happen - not after what she did, certainly not after her resignation! At the most, they'd let her back in here as a contractor - maybe. If we were in dire circumstances - and they'd have to be really dire! But that's not usually the way things work on Air Force projects!"
"Well, I think you should go and talk to her, anyway."
That was an unexpected surprise. "Me?"
"You're the leader of this team," Daniel said.
He didn't want to go. Jack O'Neill didn't do 'talking' well. But Daniel had a point. He was the leader of SG-1 and Carter was a member of SG-1. Had been a member of SG-1. And something had happened to her while she was technically under his command and he'd never twigged. That it had gone so far was partly his responsibility, and he owed her the gesture.
Didn't mean he had to like it.
"You're closer to her."
"If you don't want to go, then just say so, Jack." Blue eyes glared at him. "Just don't make excuses."
"That wasn't an excuse!" Jack snapped back. So maybe Daniel talking to him again wasn't such a good thing after all. Distance definitely made the heart grow fonder as far as Daniel was concerned. "I'll go."
"Good." Daniel turned back to whatever it was he'd been translating before the issue of Carter's retirement came up. "And don't sound so cheerful about it."
Jack grimaced and went back to the personnel profiles.
Come back from Edora. No probs. He hadn't done a thing to help it, really.
Re-acclimatise to Earth. Easy. The three months of Edora were fading into his memory already.
Get used to sleeping alone again. Okay, not quite so easy. He'd forgotten how nice it was to wake up to someone else in the bed. But he couldn't have stayed on Edora and Laira would never have fit into his life on Earth. The situation was no more right for them than it was for him and Sara after Charlie died.
Go back on missions. More difficult. While he'd never liked the idea of grubbing around in the dirt, he had to admit that farming was peaceful. Uneventful. Certainly, nowhere near as stressful as the fighting he'd done all his life. Or as tiring as being diplomatic with hard-headed alien races.
Deal with the crisis kindled by the actions of a junior officer who had no previous record of any such behaviour, but certainly enough reason in the last few years to lose it in such a spectacular manner. Difficult. Coming hard on the heels of his return and dealing with everything he'd thought he'd lost and everything that had happened in his absence, it had spun him out, confused him. It still did.
Get Carter to talk about whatever had prompted the temporary insanity that had caused her actions on Tollana?
Damn well impossible.
----
By the end of the third day, Sam was getting antsy.
She'd cleaned the house from top to bottom, done the grocery shopping, written emails to all the friends she occasionally kept in touch with, manicured her nails, read through the graduate papers of the physics department at the Academy, and was reduced to reading the ordinary, everyday news.
None of it was good.
And it wasn't made any better by the apprehension Sam was feeling over this whole thing.
She wasn't quite sure what she was waiting to happen. Hammond hadn't been able to tell her anything, mostly because he didn't know anything.
They were expecting someone to contact her in the coming few days. They didn't know who, and they didn't know how. It was a leap of faith over a chasm in the dark. Once the solid ground was gone from beneath her feet, she'd have to wing it.
Once again, Sam wished that someone else had been chosen to carry out this mission. She'd never done undercover before and she had no idea if she was doing it right. If there was a right way to go about it at all.
She clicked through the TV channels finding nothing to her tastes, so she turned the TV off.
Then she glanced over at the chess game still in progress on the coffee table before the TV. She and Daniel had been in the middle of a 'best of five' the night before they left to go to Edora. All Daniel's attempts to lure her back to the game had been futile in the three months since, and the game stood, untouched and unwon, in a perpetual state of battle that might never conclude.
Sometimes she wondered if that was the way of their fight against the Goa'uld. Never-ending, never concluding. Old hopes dying under the crush of their duty and new hopes never being given birth as the war, like a monster, swallowed everything in their lives.
Miserable thoughts, Sam. She glanced out the back door at her garden. Maybe she should go outside and start fixing up the garden? It would give her hands something to do anyway, even if her mind wandered and wondered.
The knock at the door startled her and she turned to regard it with someone approaching a sense of dread. This was probably it. No going back from here.
You can't go back now. You have nowhere and no one to go back to, she thought grimly.
But when she pulled the door open, her guest was Colonel O'Neill.
She had a moment of absolute panic as a barrage of thoughts slipped in and out of her mind in mere seconds.
What's he doing here? I'm no longer his concern. Unless he's been sent to contact me... But...the Colonel? Of all the possible people she had envisioned as part of this setup, he had not been one of them.
"Carter."
"Sir."
He grimaced. "Lose the 'sir'. I'm not your commanding officer anymore." There was a definite gruff component to his voice and Sam suddenly had a slightly nasty sick feeling in her stomach.
Under different circumstances, she might have been very glad of those words. At least she wouldn't have to deny that the respect and affection she felt for him was, in Janet's euphemistic phrasing, 'a problem'. Maybe there would even have been possibilities opening up for them...
Bitter memory provided the clarity she needed as she remembered the frozen humiliation of him walking away from her - to the arms of another woman. Never mind that he didn't have the faintest idea about her own personal revelations while he was on Edora, it had still been a slap in the face.
And now, with so much riding on her ability to keep him and her other old team-mates away, Sam would have to issue the slap in his face that drove him away.
She shrugged, leaning against the doorframe. "Old habits. Sir." She gently emphasised the title and watched him grimace.
"May I come in?"
No.
"Sure. Not for too long, though. I've got things to do." Brisk and brusque. That's the way to do it, Sam.
He followed her down the hallway. "Keeping yourself busy, then?"
"Yeah. Puttering around the house. Makes a nice change from saving the world."
He paused at the entrance to the main living area, glancing around it in swift reconnaissance. "So have you decided where you're going to work now?"
Sam shrugged. "I haven't started looking yet. Enjoying the downtime." She didn't offer him refreshments of any kind since she didn't want him to stay. And if he started questioning her too intently, she wasn't sure how well she'd hold out. Hammond had warned her about being under scrutiny - especially after her ties with the SGC were broken. They'd want to make sure that her disgrace was for real.
Her house was probably bugged and she'd really had to fight the temptation to see if she could find them. That would give her away.
"I never figured you as the type to relax, Carter." He interrupted her thoughts, seeing that she wasn't about to make the small talk.
"It gets easier as you get used to it. You should know that from Edora."
"There wasn't a lot of relaxing on Edora." He sounded short now. That's right, get him on the back foot. Behave in a manner he wouldn't expect from 'Major Sam Carter', and confuse him enough so he doesn't ask questions until it's too late. "Mostly we were working to try to get the harvest set up so we didn't starve through the winter."
"Ah." His identification with the Edoran remnant was interesting. Sam filed that note away for later use.
He glanced up at her noise of doubtful understanding. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"From the look of things when we broke through to the surface, the harvest wasn't the only thing you seemed to be setting up."
The dark eyes narrowed a little as he stared at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Her voice was cool and slightly malicious as she said, "Only that it didn't take you very long to 'get comfortable' on Edora."
"That happened later."
"I'm sure." There was a certain enjoyment to be taken in being 'the bitch'. Sam always had a lot to say - she just didn't always say it. Military training had taught her that much, at least; given her a measure of self-control and a feeling for when to say something and when to rein it in.
Ostensibly, she wasn't in the military anymore. And while she didn't want to burn all her bridges, it was necessary that she at least singe some to the point where people would think twice about crossing them.
"Exactly what are you implying, Carter?"
It was a perfect opening.
She met his gaze, full force. "For a man who holds the view that nobody should get left behind, you didn't seem to have a lot of faith in the people you lead. For someone who knows that the Asgard and the Tollan and the Tok'ra can traverse galaxies in a matter of minutes, you seemed remarkably sure that you were going to be staying there permanently. And for someone for whom parenthood is considered such a sacred duty, you jumped into the sack with the Edoran fast enough." The information about the Edoran woman's desire for a child had come from a number of sources: base gossip, the Edoran refugees' gossip, and an overheard conversation between the Colonel and Teal'c. "Unless, of course, the local woman was just a passing fancy? A brief roll in the hay?"
His mouth tightened at the cavalier manner of her dismissal. But he still held onto his temper by the thinnest of threads as he gritted out, "Since when have I engaged in casual liaisons, Carter?"
Sam callously snapped the thread. "Both Daniel and Teal'c have indicated the occasional 'bar-cruise pick-up' on your part." Never mind that such 'encounters' were several years old. She watched him flush and took a small satisfaction in it. "And even while on duty, there was always the aging incident with the Argosians."
Irrationally, the memories ached a little. It was long after the fact, long before she'd particularly cared about him - although the incident with the Argosians was annoying for the ease with which he'd jumped into bed with the woman, drugged or not. Off-duty, his sex life was not her business. On-duty, what was she supposed to do with a commanding officer who had no compunction about taking up the first invitation to 'get it on'?
"That," he bit out, "was under an entirely different set of circumstances!"
"Ah, so we make exceptions if the lady is good at flirting in the darkness?" There was a certain satisfaction in being able to say all this. Under his command she was constrained from speaking her true mind. Out from under his command there were no holds barred.
And while a part of her felt sorry for him since he'd obviously come here to check how she was doing, another part was taking a fairly ruthless satisfaction in watching him back away. Whatever he'd been expecting from her, this barrage of accusation was not part of it.
"Laira was one of the few things that kept me going while I was stuck on Edora," he said in a low, dangerous voice. "She took me in when most of her people didn't care whether I lived or died. I was...grateful."
She looked him up and down in a manner that was no less insulting for that it was appreciative, "So I saw."
He bristled, his pride stung. "Carter, I thought I was stuck there on Edora!"
"You thought wrong, sir."
"I know that now."
"You should have known it then."
From the expression on his face - like he'd swallowed something unpleasant - her tactics were working. His features closed up and he stuck his hands in his pockets. "Maybe I should have." The bitter finality in his voice elicited a desire to tell him the whole plan - to blurt out the reasons for her peculiar behaviour, but she thought of the bugs in her house and kept silent. "I..." he looked like he was about to say something - something big and irrevocable.
Sam couldn't afford that. "Colonel," she said in her coolest voice, matching her expression to the tone and aching inside as she did so. "If you came to say sorry about not being more grateful about the rescue, then that's fine. I didn't do it solely for you, and the Edoran refugees were glad to be returned to their home, even if you weren't." Crisp words, sharp edges, cutting tones. A harsh sentence. "I'm sorry I interrupted your romantic idyll on the planet, but I'm sure she won't mind a visit from time to time." She made it sound as sordid as she could manage.
"That will be enough, Carter."
"You forget, Colonel. You don't command me anymore." And after all this, he probably wouldn't want to command her if she ever came back, either.
"Yeah," he said, the words clipped. "I forgot. I just thought that maybe a couple of years of working together counted for something and came to see how you were doing." And there was something terrible in his voice and his expression as he indicated the door. "But since you're doing fine, I guess I'll leave."
The haste with which he made for the door would have been amusing if it wasn't quite so nightmarish. Sam followed him out and was about to shut the door on him when he paused at the edge of the veranda and turned back. She couldn't read the expression on his face, but he was tense as a strung wire. "I never said this, Carter, but...I did want to come back. I just didn't expect to ever get back." He gave a little shrug that had some indefinable element to it that Sam couldn't quite pinpoint. "Thank you for getting me back."
"You're welcome." Her voice was a marvel of quiet unconcern. "Thanks for coming around."
He nodded once then turned away and walked down the steps.
Sam closed the door before he'd reached the path, then laid her head against the door and screwed her eyes tightly shut. All in all, that had probably been the worst fifteen minutes of her life.
She respected the Colonel. Respected and admired him - both as a fellow officer and as a man. The last couple of months had been hard. The last week had been harder.
And maybe it was just her imagination, but it seemed like he'd been so close to saying...to saying...
So close to saying what? She demanded of herself, irritably. To making a passionate declaration of undying love? Get a grip on yourself, Sam! The man's a professional - and so are you!
This whole undercover thing was getting to her, the near-constant tension draining her like a flashlight left on too long. The situation just added the stress of getting the Colonel back from Edora, her own...affection...for the man and the discovery of his relationship with the Edoran woman
Sam wasn't sure she could cope with it all.
And if she didn't work out how to cope in the next couple of days then she could kiss this mission, her life, and the Earth good-bye as the Protected Planets Treaty went down the drain and the Tollan revoked their alliance with Earth.
Levering herself off the door she headed out to the back of the house, seeking something to do with her hands. She'd noticed the gladioli were getting rather crowded in their corner of the backyard. She'd do some gardening to take her mind off what she'd just said.
And how badly the Colonel was going to take it.
----
O'Neill refused to talk about the discussion between him and Major Carter. Daniel Jackson was afire with curiosity, but O'Neill was silent on the details, saying only that their team-mate had told him his concern was appreciated but unnecessary.
Teal'c sat in his room, just emerged from kel no reem. His body felt rested and renewed, but his mind was still troubled. Primarily by Major Carter's behaviour, but also by the events which had transpired from that. The sundering of SG-1 was unwelcome and unpleasant; their team-mate's complete rejection of them no less disturbing than her fall from grace.
He was not sure what would have caused Major Carter to behave in the manner in which she had, but her refusal to talk about it - and O'Neill's refusal to talk about his discussion with her - boded badly for her state of mind at this time.
In the meantime, General Hammond had presented O'Neill with a list of officers from which O'Neill was to choose a replacement for Major Carter. Teal'c had seen O'Neill push the list aside, unwilling to contemplate anyone in Major Carter's role on the team.
Indeed, Teal'c could not imagine going through the gate without their missing team-mate present among them.
The recollection of that first day still clung to his memory. He had stepped through the wormhole to Earth, an unknown to these people, uncertain of whether death or imprisonment awaited him.
He had trusted O'Neill's word, knowing little else that was true in this new environment. He had seen the distrust in the eyes of the man he would come to know as General Hammond, and the wariness in the eyes of the people who had languished in Apophis' prison.
And he had seen the trust in the eyes of the woman who stood on the ramp, with the beauty of a rare and treasured wife, and the mien of a warrior. She did not understand him, but she followed the lead of the man who commanded her, and maybe her own instincts, too. She'd held out her hands to take his weapon - a gesture of trust between warriors - and, recognising a true and kindred spirit in her, Teal'c relinquished it to her hands.
But that had been long ago. Many changes had happened in that time, some of them immediately noticeable, others only gradually so. And somehow, the change in Major Carter had happened while nobody was looking.
It troubled him.
A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. "Teal'c?"
"Daniel Jackson?"
The door opened, "Jack said to head up to the briefing room. We're getting our new team member. Apparently."
Teal'c rose from his seated position on the floor. "O'Neill has chosen?"
"I guess so." Daniel Jackson sounded less than pleased as he made that pronouncement. He exhaled with a huffing sigh. "Teal'c...did you notice anything about Sam while Jack was away?"
"I did not." Teal'c made the admission with regret. With little knowledge that could assist Major Carter in her endeavour to complete the particle accelerator, Teal'c had settled for keeping a watch on her as much as he could. He offered his services to General Hammond on other teams and training soldiers in use of the weapons of the Goa'uld during O'Neill's absence.
Another sigh. "Me, neither." Daniel Jackson had worked with many of the Edoran refugees, trying to reassure them that they would get home again, finding them somewhere they could stay while they were in the care of the SGC. He, also, had kept an eye on Major Carter, along with Dr. Fraiser. "You don't have any idea of what Sam could have said to clam Jack up like that?"
"I do not, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c felt no guilt at lying to his friend. He had perhaps a small idea, but he was fairly certain that O'Neill would not divulge such a thing, either to Daniel Jackson or himself. And Major Carter certainly would not. "Where is the meeting with O'Neill?"
"Briefing room." Daniel led the way.
Teal'c appreciated his team-mate's thoughtfulness in coming down to inform him of the news. While there was a phone in Teal'c's quarters, he preferred not to be called on it since it interrupted his kel no reem in a very abrupt manner.
"Did Jack say anything to you about who he chose as the new team member?"
"He did not. However, I believe he was inclined towards one of the younger officers with a scientific background."
"He was? I'm surprised. I'd have thought he'd had enough of 'geeks' in me and Sam to last him a lifetime." There was a mild bitterness in Daniel Jackson's voice. Relations between O'Neill and Daniel Jackson had been strained since O'Neill's return from Edora - mainly regarding O'Neill's reluctance to believe that his team would have come after him at any cost.
The question of self-worth and value was moot to Daniel Jackson's mind. His self-esteem was quite intact and he had no problem with the idea that his knowledge and expertise was valuable. However, Teal'c could see how O'Neill's experiences had inclined him to disbelief of his personal worth. In the end, the warriors that made up an army were expendable to those who commanded them - and the warriors learned that at painful cost to themselves.
Teal'c understood that as Daniel Jackson did not.
He had been disconcerted that O'Neill had given up hope, but he did not question O'Neill's desire to regain those things which had been lost to him years ago: the love of a woman and the joy of children. Every warrior understood the deep and abiding desire of his fellow warrior to return to someone at the end of each fight and to have little ones run to him for care.
O'Neill had once possessed both, but had since lost both.
So Teal'c could understand his friend's 'betrayal of faith', even as Daniel Jackson could not.
"I'm almost of a mind to go see Sam myself," his companion remarked. "Someone's got to go and make her see sense."
Perhaps someone did have to 'make Major Carter see sense', however Teal'c doubted there was either a man or Jaffa up to the task at this point in time - or possibly at any point in time. The only person who would be making Major Carter see sense would be herself. Whatever had come upon her, it was powerful enough to throw her from her customary behaviour into the irregular conduct she had displayed in the last week.
Teal'c said nothing, giving neither approval nor disapproval to Daniel Jackson's plans. However, he hoped that his friend would not attempt to speak with Major Carter at this time. O'Neill had been ripe for whatever she had said to him, and Daniel Jackson would be no less vulnerable in such a situation.
In the briefing room, O'Neill, Hammond, and a young woman were waiting for them.
"You've been called here to meet your new team member. This is Lieutenant Claire Tobias, Colonel O'Neill picked her to join SG-1."
"It'll be a pleasure to work with you all," the Lieutenant said. She seemed unusually self-possessed regarding her elevation in status. There had been a significant amount of interest in who would be chosen to succeed Major Carter on SG-1 among the junior officers, and Teal'c understood that someone had been running a betting pool on how long it would take O'Neill to choose a new officer, and who it would be.
Teal'c inclined his head to Lieutenant Tobias in polite greeting as Daniel Jackson asked, "Lieutenant. What's your background?"
"Engineering, Dr. Jackson. Mostly mechanical, although I have a little knowledge of computer and electrical engineering also."
"Lieutenant Tobias has significant expertise with alien technology," General Hammond informed them. "She's been out on assignment with several SG-teams, but this is her first permanent assignment to an SG-team."
Teal'c felt surprise that O'Neill had not chosen someone of greater Stargating experience than the Lieutenant, but he remained silent. Daniel Jackson did not.
"Well, no offence to Lieutenant Tobias, but...I was expecting someone with a little more experience in going through the gate."
The Lieutenant did not seem overly surprised by the objection to her presence on the team. Her answer was cool and collected, "Dr. Jackson, I assure you that I am fully conversant with the tactics of both Goa'uld and Jaffa, and have seen my share of action in my time on and off the various SG-teams. Neither my commanders nor the teams I've worked with have complained of my performance. Nor will SG-1."
"I'm sure you'll make Lieutenant Tobias' transition to the team as smooth as possible, SG-1." General Hammond looked around at them all, "Dismissed."
They milled around for a moment, O'Neill, Daniel Jackson and Teal'c facing off against the wiry young blonde. She regarded them with unusual self-possession in a human her age.
It was O'Neill who finally broke the silence. "Hammond says we'll be heading out on a run tomorrow. Nothing big, just a planetary survey. Done much geology, Tobias?"
"No, sir."
"Well, it's always good to learn new things. You should get quite a bit of a chance on SG-1." It sounded like O'Neill didn't quite know what to do with the Lieutenant.
"Yes, sir."
Once again, silence. "Anyway, I'm off to get some paperwork done before we have to go out tomorrow," O'Neill said. "I'll catch you guys in the commissary later. 'K?" And off he walked.
There was an uncomfortably silent moment of standoffishness before the Lieutenant evidently decided to bite the bullet.
"You don't have anything to say, Dr. Jackson? Nothing about how big the shoes are that I have to fill in Major Carter's absence?"
For once, Daniel Jackson chose to use the short answer instead of the long. "No," he said calmly. "We'll see how you do on the mission tomorrow." And with that he stomped off, clattering down the stairs.
Teal'c was left to regard the newest member of SG-1.
The polite expression dropped a little revealing a slight edge of desperation. "Is it going to be this hard all the way?"
"It will be difficult, Lieutenant Tobias," Teal'c said, deciding that alienating this young woman was not going to be the best way to foster team feeling. And, much as he did not like the circumstances under which she had joined SG-1, he would be obligated to work with her in the future. "We are accustomed to Major Carter. In time, we will become accustomed to you, too."
She smiled a little at that, evidently relieved. "Thank you. I'd better go off and answer all the questions my colleagues are going to want to ask me about this assignment." And with a barely-noticeable hesitation, she also left.
Teal'c turned back to the gate room, looking down at the now-quiescent Stargate.
So many changes. So many things to adjust to.
He wondered what Major Carter was doing. Whatever her state of mind, she was one of the few people in the base that accepted Teal'c as he was - and he missed that. O'Neill was like Teal'c's brother - but his restlessness could irk. Daniel Jackson was a great friend, but Teal'c did not understand the abruptness of his attitude when his concentration was elsewhere.
Major Carter had been driven enough in her pursuits - sometimes too much so - but she had been willing to stop and talk when Teal'c came to see her. Except during those three months when O'Neill had been trapped on Edora.
That time had been difficult for her - and by extension, for the other members of the team. While Major Carter was not yet a leader as O'Neill was, she still commanded their attention, even in O'Neill's absence - and her moods had translated over to her team-mates.
Even after O'Neill's return, she had been restless and troubled.
Teal'c attributed this to her discomfort upon realising that O'Neill did not trust his team as much as they trusted him. That he had not expected them to come for him or to find him after a mere three months. It was a difficult thing to find trust betrayed - and O'Neill had betrayed the trust of his team-mates in accepting his lot with the Edorans and developing a relationship with the Edoran woman.
Both Major Carter and Daniel Jackson had taken it hard - but her response had been out of all proportion. Unexpected and unwelcome when it came, and unfathomable to her team-mates.
Teal'c hoped she was well.
----
Maybourne turning up was nearly a relief after the Colonel's departure. Nearly.
He was cautious in approaching her. She'd had no record of insubordination before, so she guessed that he wanted to see what had broken the perfect Major cast.
In truth, he - and everyone else - had never looked beyond the surface of Sam Carter, model officer. They saw what she wanted them to see and what they expected to see: a woman who did her duty and obeyed orders.
She'd been burned by too many commanders who didn't want a subordinate who could out-think them most of the time. And her career was only everything to her. So she'd learned to keep her head down and stay out of the politics wherever possible. She knew that, eventually, she'd have to get into the politics if she was going to move up the officer ranks - the higher you got, the more political you became; and there were too few assignments where you could manage to avoid the intricacies of politics because you had enough clout to hold them off.
Stargate Command was one of those places. Enough classification to keep most of the political players off their backs, enough urgency to keep it open, enough leeway to run things in an unorthodox manner. Sam had seen the machinations in the corridors of the Pentagon. She'd kept out of it as much as possible as a mere Captain with a Doctorate in Astrophysics - and taken the transfer to the SGC the instant it came up.
So nobody had ever suspected that Major Sam Carter had a wild streak in her. Not even her team.
Certainly not Maybourne.
Sam played her part and, after an initial hesitation, he took the bait. A little too much cloak-and-daggers in Sam's opinion, and were the dramatics of 'This is your last chance to back out' really necessary? If only Maybourne had known - there was no backing out of this one for Sam Carter. No backing out at all.
Although Sam didn't want to back out of this one. Not with the kind of consequences it would incur for Earth.
Duty and sacrifice in the name of honour; personal, organisational, and planetary.
She sat in one of the seats of Maybourne's private jet plane. The second time in six months. Better not get too used to this. Last time had been no more comfortable for her than this time, with Maybourne, the Colonel, and Daniel all watching her like hawks. If she wasn't paranoid before they picked her up at the café, then she certainly was after they'd 'kept an eye' on her for half the plane trip.
The difference now was that while she might not feel any more comfortable, she was taking care to look more comfortable.
It seemed odd that Maybourne would want to take her to any location - unless it was a tax-free island run by the NID off the Bahamas through which they 'laundered' their tech. But she was pretty sure that they'd banked a couple of times since they lifted off, and for the life of her, she couldn't work out why.
Finally, aware that Maybourne was watching her closely, she turned to him and asked. "Are we going anywhere, or are we just trying to avoid surveillance?"
He grinned. "I was wondering if you'd work it out, Major. It's a lot easier to ensure no prying eyes or listening ears are about when you're thirty thousand feet in the air." A gesture, and two of his men removed themselves from the room but came in a moment later with what looked like a large copper box. He opened it and out rose a little platform with a silvery ball on it. "Do you know what this is?" Maybourne asked as he picked it up.
"A Goa'uld long-range telecommunications device."
He smiled with what passed for a cocky grin for him. "And my organisation didn't have to negotiate for it."
Sam caught the gist of what Maybourne was saying, but she decided that she'd play dumb or cautious for the moment. "NID?"
"Uh...not quite. We're an...offshoot organisation."
"Ah." And that said it all, really. Sam indicated the ball. "So, I take it you operate from off-world and communicate via this?"
"You're sharp, Major."
"Actually, Maybourne, it's Doctor. I'm retired from the Air Force." She didn't have to simulate the tensing of her jaw or the bitterness in her voice. So much that she'd left behind with so little hope of seeing it again. All she had to do was put one foot wrong...
So don't put a foot wrong, snapped her competitive side. You managed to avoid being known as 'General Carter's daughter' through the Academy - and that was no mean feat - you can do this in your sleep!
Maybourne continued, unaware of her thoughts. "Maybe you are. But you could still serve your country and your planet." He smiled. "And I'm too old to change my habits now. How would you like to lead teams through the Stargate, Major? You never had the chance under O'Neill."
"I did once." She thought of the misery of the mission to Tollana. "Twice."
Maybourne rallied well. "You could do it again. On a regular basis." He smiled. "Your reports indicate that both General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill think you're command material."
That was a surprise. "I doubt they hold that opinion anymore," she said, dryly.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not." Maybourne leaned forward, "Whether or not I agree with their methods, Major, I trust their judgement of you. You did well during the foothold situation at the SGC..." For the first time during their discussion, Maybourne looked a little abashed. "I hear you were up for a Presidential commendation for that one."
More surprises. Sam managed a cool little smile, "Perhaps." She shrugged, as if Presidential commendations didn't count for much in her book, "It doesn't make much difference now. Presently, I'm more interested in what you're offering me to work for you."
"Straight to the point. Very well. Leadership of one of the teams that go through the Stargate and pick up pieces like this." He hefted the device in his hand, then set it down on the stand. "It took us a while to work out how to use one of these without a Goa'uld at the helm, but, in the end, good old human ingenuity won out."
The gold surface of the device became translucent and the swirling gold-grey mists parted to show the face of a young man. Possibly of Hispanic background, the expression was personable and intent. "Colonel Maybourne."
"Newman. I'd like you to meet Major Samantha Carter. Retired." There was a hint of gentle mockery in Maybourne's voice as he pronounced the last word.
"Major Carter," Newman seemed impressed. "It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am. I've read all the SG-1 mission reports, they're very impressive."
"Thank you, Newman."
"I believe we've even met before," the young man continued. "In the hangar of a Utah landing strip."
Sam turned to Maybourne. "So you knew about the Madrona Touchstone all along." She shouldn't have been surprised, really. They'd always suspected that Maybourne had his finger in more pies than just the NID and connections to the SGC.
One more piece to the puzzle.
But quite possibly not the final piece.
She had to find out more.
"Plausible deniability, Major." Maybourne tilted his head at her. "You know the routine."
And she did. What you didn't know, you couldn't tell; and what they thought you didn't know, you wouldn't have to.
"Newman presently heads up the teams going through our Stargate. However, with the extent of your involvement in the Stargate program, and particularly with your experience of command logistics, I think that you'll fit very neatly into the role as outpost commander." Maybourne smiled. "We tend to run things a lot less formally in this operation, Major, but it is your command to run as you see fit within our guidelines."
"Which are?"
"Newman?"
"Use whatever means necessary to obtain goods or technology that could help defend Earth against the Goa'ulds or other unforeseen aggressors."
Sam nodded. Not an entirely unexpected motto given the circumstances under which the SGC had been contacted by the Tollan and the Asgard. Now the interesting question was where they'd gotten hold of these people. She judged Newman to be her junior by some four or five years, and his address of her in the military mode wasn't forced or stumbling. "You're ex-military, aren't you, Newman?"
"That would be classified, Major," Maybourne interrupted before Newman could say anything more.
"If I'm going to work with these people, I'm going to need to know about them."
"You'll get that information upon acceptance of the command," he told her. "So how about it, Major? Ready to take a command which will enable you to achieve what needs to be done for this planet?"
Sam smiled tightly. "Ready." She was more than ready.
"It'll be an honour serving under you, ma'am," Newman said with apparent sincerity. "I'll see you when you arrive on-base."
"Thank you, Newman."
"We'll communicate at the usual time tomorrow."
The young man nodded and the opaque gold swirled back over the device.
Maybourne sat back, watching for her reaction, and Sam sat back, mirroring his pose.
"An off-world base?"
"Sent through before the SGC closed the second Stargate down."
She nodded once in satisfaction at the success of that particular operation - even if they hadn't managed to pin the head of the snake. That was her job now. "And how do you propose that I get to where they are, considering that the second Stargate is now under constant surveillance by the SGC?"
Her new 'commander' grinned. "Through the SGC Stargate, of course!"
And he laid out exactly how.
----
"You can't mean to just...throw away everything you've done here!"
They were in the elevator, headed down to the gate room. Teal'c was a silently disapproving escort in the background; Daniel was a noisily disapproving escort in the foreground.
"Why not, Daniel?" She asked coolly. "The military is a machine. If you don't fit into the pattern, then they don't have a use for you." And they don't have a use for me. Sam didn't say the words, but she felt them. She felt them in the core of her being, a frightened whisper that she refused to allow purchase. Not because they were true: the Air Force did have a use for her right now. But when she was finished... If she finished. If she made it through and got out the other side of the night into the daylight...
Don't think about that now. Think about the mission. That's all that matters now.
Her training helped. She put the fear behind her, what would happen would happen. She had to make it happen right - as much as she could.
"Don't do this, Sam. Please."
And more than anything else, at this moment, she wished she could tell him why she was doing this. Why she'd had to say what she said, do what she'd done.
"Daniel." She injected an amused pity into her voice as the elevator dinged for the gate room floor and the doors slid open. Then she walked past him and out into the corridor beyond.
The corridor leading to the Gate room.
"I'd like to go off-world."
"I don't know that I can permit that, Doctor." In the absence of her military rank, General Hammond addressed her by her academic title.
"The Air Force has no jurisdiction over me anymore, General." It was hard to talk to him, aware of the two men hovering outside the door. At least, Daniel was hovering. Teal'c was standing out in the corridor, listening with eagle ears.
She didn't know where the Colonel was.
"Perhaps not, Ma...Doctor. However, we do have jurisdiction over the Stargate - and your skills and knowledge are too valuable for us to permit to fall into Goa'uld hands."
"I won't be going anywhere near the Goa'uld, sir."
The General looked confused. "Weren't you planning to go to a Tok'ra protected world?"
"Actually, General, I was thinking of Edora."
He blinked. "Edora?"
"Do you recall the blacksmith, sir? The one who asked permission to be taken on a tour of the facility?" While the others had lamented their fate and the fate of those left behind, Hiren had been fascinated by the place his people had come to.
General Hammond's eyes narrowed. "Yes. What about him?"
She felt her cheeks growing warm, "He..."
"I get the picture, Ma...Doctor." The General was grim and Sam hastened to reassure him.
"It was nothing like that, sir. He took an interest in the way the base worked. We were...friends. He said...that I was welcome on Edora any time I cared to visit."
His words had been more thoughtful than that, and prefaced with admiration. "I could never compete against your world, your people. And I do not think I could compete against your friends and the loyalty you hold for them. But part of me wishes otherwise." He smiled wryly. "Should you ever care to visit us, you will be welcome in my household." And he limped up the ramp - lame in leg, and yet strong in spirit.
"And if you're no longer welcome?"
Sam had thought this through. Maybourne had suggested the off world retirement option, she had chosen Edora. Mostly because she had few other options. The Tok'ra were a possibility, but there would have been no question of 'retirement' on Vorash. "The Edorans are rebuilding their culture, sir. A woman of childbearing age, with knowledge that could help develop their standard of living would be welcome in any case."
The General had sighed. "Sam... Your work here has been sufficient to permit me to give you some leeway in this matter, but you know that I can't give you a GDO . Once you're gone, you can't come back. Are you sure you want to do this?"
He met her gaze, both of them knowing what her answer would be. It was the same answer she'd given him when he asked her to take on this mission in the first place.
"Yes, sir. I'm sure."
So now she walked into the crowded gate room as the gate dialled.
Once she stepped through that horizon, she would be on her own. There would be no team to back her up, no organisation to take her fall. It was just her.
It was terrifying.
Yet, as she glanced around at the people assembled in the gate room, Sam felt strangely sustained. These were the people for whom she was undertaking this mission. These were the people who she was closest to in all the universe - not even saving her father or her brother's presence.
And in spite of whatever reservations they had about her recent behaviour, they'd come to say goodbye.
Nobody approached her, but she felt surrounded by them, uplifted. There was a purity to the feeling, a rightness about her actions that she tried to hold onto, even as the final chevron clicked into place - the point-of-origin symbol for Earth.
Home.
The explosion of energy particles into the gate room prickled the hairs on her neck as she shouldered her duffle - all she was taking with her on this mission - although only she and the General knew it was a mission.
Behind her she heard the people milling around as she paused at the foot of the ramp.
She knew her team were there. Daniel stood in the control room, quietly seething, Teal'c might be beside him or up in the briefing room watching from the window, and Sam knew the Colonel was somewhere there. She didn't know how she knew. She just knew.
Others were in the gate room, too; Janet and Siler, the scientists she'd worked with, the young officers she'd tutored. People who'd been a part of her life every day for the last three years coming to wish her the best - no matter what they thought of her actions.
Their presence bolstered her, reminding her that she was doing the right thing - the only thing she could do. They didn't know the truth, but she did. They didn't understand now, but someday they would.
With that thought, Sam began the long climb to the open wormhole leading to more than just Edora.
"SGC salute!"
The rustle of material whispered softly through the room as all the people she'd worked with gave her a salute and she felt tears sting her eyes but didn't wipe them away.
Carters are strong, Sam. They're always the toughest. Her father's voice echoed in her head, a mantra from her teenage years.
Sam had always tried to be strong. And she had succeeded so far.
At the top of the ramp she paused, but didn't turn around. If she turned around and looked for the three men who had shared her life these past years, then she'd never do what she had to do.
One step. That was all it would take. One final, irrevocable step.
She took it.