She returned to the SGC six hours later, a folder of crime scene photographs in her hand, dried blood staining her pants and jacket. A smear of blood across of her forehead where she'd rubbed her head with a stained hand did nothing for her, a dark smudge against an otherwise bloodless complexion.
All members of her team other than Annie and Agent Robb were gathered in the conference room and silence fell the moment she stalked into the room.
"Where's Annie?"
"She's in the briefing room. The President's here and some of the Board members." Andrew was the first to react, taking a step towards her with concern in his eyes. "Robb's dead, isn't she?"
"Yeah. She is." Sam stared at the white board through dull eyes. "Find her photo ID. Put it with the others. I'm going to get Annie, catch her up on a few things. We'll debrief here at 1300 hours. Get a few hours sleep. You're going to need it."
God knew she needed it herself but as she talked out of the room, folder still clutched tightly to her, she knew she wouldn't be sleeping for a long time to come. Every time she closed her eyes she saw one of two faces and both were enough to chase all thoughts of sleep from her mind.
Agent Robb, her glassy eyes confused and scared. Blood everywhere. So much blood. A jagged line across the pale skin of her throat.
Her teammates would be seeing her face in their nightmares as soon as she showed them the photographs in her hand and she was determined to let them be oblivious to the horror for a few more hours at least.
The second face was one only a few of them would see, that only those she'd worked with before would know and remember.
Elizabeth Masters. Her former partner, best friend and the reason she struggled to meet her own eyes when she looked in the mirror. The reason she carried guilt around in her heart no matter where she went or what she did.
People looked at her as she stalked passed them, some with alarm in their eyes as they got close enough to really look at her. Close enough to see the blood, close enough to smell it. Close enough to see the bruises under her eyes and the fury on her face.
She didn't knock on the briefing room door, didn't stop to think about storming into a room filled with not only several of her superiors but also the President of the United States.
"You have another dead MIU agent on your hands," she declared, marching to the top of the table where the President sat. She barely noticed Jack sitting beside him, barely registered that he didn't belong there. "A damn good one who wouldn't have let someone she didn't know and trust get close to her."
"Colonel Carter..." The voice came from behind her, from a member of the Board she didn't recognise but she didn't bother turning to glare at whoever it was.
Didn't have to because the President held up his hand to keep the rest of the warning at bay. "I understand that this would be upsetting to you, Colonel Carter, but you can't let yourself get involved on a personal level..."
"It is personal." She slammed the folder she carried onto the table, welcoming the sting in her palm. She flipped it opened, spread the photographs inside on the table in front of him, ignoring the various gasps and mumbled comments from around the room. "It's personal when a member of my team gets her throat slit just miles from where we are. It's personal when these bastards leave her to bleed to death then call me to let me know where I can find her body. It's personal when I have to put another photograph of someone I knew on the damn board. It's fucking personal when they kill her in exactly the same way Darren Locksley chose to kill everyone the people sitting in this room ordered him to kill." She didn't take her gaze from the President's face, watched him swallow hard as his colour faded. "Look at them. Look at her. I want you to be see her face when you try and sleep tonight because it's not fair that I should have to when you don't."
"Colonel Carter, you are way out of line."
She spun on her heel at the warning, fixed Admiral Michaels with a glare. "No, you are way out of line. All of you. You order us into these situations, forgetting what it's like. You sleep easy while we get our hands bloody and I've had enough of it. It isn't fair. This is what I see every night when I try to sleep. I see people like Katrina Robb, like Elizabeth Masters. I see their bodies, the life drained out of them. I have their blood on my hands because you give me orders from your comfortable seats in your plush offices with the nice view and I am so fucking sick of it. I have their deaths on my conscience, the guilt on my heart because I didn't get there in time to stop it from happening. You sit there and you give us orders and expect us to follow them without stopping to think what it's doing to us. The loyal little foot soldiers you boss around and make do the dirty work you can't stomach anymore. This work is destroying us and you don't care because you've forgotten what it's like. You're safe; your names don't go on the mission reports, on the closed cases. These bastards don't target you because you're inaccessible. We aren't. They come after us and kill us and kill the people we care about making us scared to care about anyone else and I can't do it anymore. I won't do it anymore. I'm sick of letting them and you dictate what I can and can't do with my life. I'm tired of spending sleepless nights remembering the faces of the dead, the people I couldn't protect, worrying that the next face I see will be someone I love."
Her gaze wandered around the room, resting on each of them in turn. Some wouldn't meet her gaze, their downcast eyes showing their guilt.
"An MIU agent doesn't last very long on active duty. They get promoted to the Board like you if they're lucky or they ask to resign or retire and for some of them, you actually let that happen. The rest of us don't get that chance. We get to sit around wondering how it's going to end for us. Wondering if we're going to die or if we're just going to burn out and self-destruct. I tried to get out once and you wouldn't let me. When this is over, if I'm still alive, I want out. I wouldn't be surprised if half of the MIU agents you currently have decide they want out, too. Being an MIU agent... It used to be an honourable thing. It used to mean we were doing what was good and what was right but somewhere along the way, what's good and right got muddied and now it doesn't mean a damn thing. We're feared by those who don't understand what we are, hated and despised by those who know what we are because we're seen as the internal enemy and that's not how it should be. It's not how it was. I used to be able to look myself in the eye and feel good about the person I am. The MIU has taken that ability from me. I hate who I am, what I've become. I can't..."
She paused, swallowed hard and fought to keep her gaze from moving to rest on the General sitting beside the President. "I can't be a normal person because of what I've seen and done as a result of the orders you've given me. I can't have a relationship without thinking that I don't deserve it, without worrying that it's going to end as soon as the man I love one day looks at me and sees me for the murderer I am. It's bad enough being on the frontline and having to kill the enemy to defend the planet but when you add that to the other lives I've taken, the people from this world I've been ordered to kill, it gets too much. Way too much. I will finish this investigation and do my best to get the people responsible for this but I want nothing more to do with the MIU after that. Nothing. You want people dead, you can kill them yourselves. You can try living with it because I can't."
She picked up two of the photographs and turned on her heel, stalking out of the room with her head held high. She was breathing heavily and her chest ached with the effort but she was determined to stay in control.
Determined to ignore the way her hands shook, the way her legs trembled with every step.
She got as far as the elevators, got as far as trying to swipe her card through the slot with a hand she couldn't keep still before catching a glimpse of her reflection in the shiny metal of the doors.
Caught a glimpse of the blood on her forehead.
She felt a hand close over hers where she kept trying and failing to summon the elevator, and was distantly aware of an arm going around her waist as she crumpled to the floor.
Annie wrapped her arms around her trembling body, bent her head to cradle Sam as a mother would a distressed child. "It's okay, Sam. It's okay, baby."
"It's not okay." Her voice was strained; heavy with tears she wouldn't let herself cry. "It'll never be okay. I hate myself, Annie. I can't... I wish he'd killed me instead. Instead of Liz, instead of Katrina. It's horrible to say but I wish they were alive and I wasn't."
"You don't mean that, honey. You're just tired and upset." Annie held her close, barely glancing up at the soft footsteps from the direction of the briefing room. She saw the question on his face and shook her head slightly. She watched in approval as he stopped but didn't turn and walk away. She glanced to her left when the doors of the elevator opened, raising an eyebrow at the two men inside it. She didn't know them personally but she recognised them from the reports she'd read and the small details she'd managed to get out of Sam over the years. "Let's get you to your quarters, okay? You need to wash up, get something to eat and then get some sleep."
"Can't. Can't sleep. I don't want to see their faces anymore. I killed them. All of them. They're all dead because of me."
Annie managed to get her to her quarters with a little help from Jack. She hadn't been surprised when Teal'c and Doctor Jackson had wanted to follow and although their concern had both touched and pleased her, she was grateful when General O'Neill asked them quietly to give Sam some space.
She eased the photographs out of Sam's hand, turned them face down and left them on the small dresser in the corner of the room. With the care of a mother, she pushed Sam towards the bed and wrapped a blanket around the younger woman's shoulders as shivers wracked her frame.
"Get her something to eat? And a cup of hot chocolate or sweet tea." Annie didn't stop to think that she was ordering a higher-ranking officer. She'd stopped thinking of herself as a Colonel a long time ago and considered herself his superior due to the difference in their ages.
To his credit, Jack didn't protest. He slipped silently out of the room to do as she'd asked, returning less than ten minutes later with a tray of food. He set the tray down on the bed beside Sam and glanced around for Annie. He heard the tap running in the tiny en-suite that held nothing more than a sink and a toilet and took the initiative, sitting down on the edge of the bed beside her. "You need to eat something, Carter."
She'd pulled the blanket up over her face while he'd been gone so her response was muffled. "I'm not hungry."
"You haven't eaten in over twenty four hours. I don't care if you're hungry or not, you need something on your stomach other than the gallons of coffee you've no doubt tried drowning yourself in." He reached for her, untangled the blanket until he could see the top of her head.
She lifted her face from her knees and glared at him though there was no genuine anger on her face. "What do you care? You walked out on me."
"I didn't walk out on you. I backed off to give you space because you wouldn't talk to me." He picked up the cup of hot chocolate and pushed it into her hand. "If you won't eat, you'll drink."
She scowled at him but took the cup. "Go away, Jack. This doesn't concern you."
"You concern me." He watched her sip the drink, gave an approving nod. "Why didn't you tell me last night how you felt? Could've saved us both a sleepless night."
"It doesn't matter now, does it? You've made your choice."
"I chose to wait for you to be honest about how you felt. You were honest in the briefing room today. Brutally honest." A smile touched his eyes "Hadn't quite expected you to shout at the President but at least you stopped holding it in."
"I shouted at the President." She repeated it in a surprised tone, staring into her cup. "Oops."
"It's nothing he isn't used to." Annie said briskly, walking over to sit on the other side of her, a wet cloth in hand. "God knows I've shouted at him enough since I met him."
Sam snorted, flinched slightly at the cold cloth against her forehead. "It's slightly different, Annie. You're sleeping with him. You're allowed." She glanced to the people either side of her when silence fell, unsure as to which expression was more amusing. "Was it supposed to be a secret?"
Annie glared at her. "It was supposed to be a secret from everyone. Including you."
"I make it my business to keep track of what you're doing as much as you keep track of what I'm doing." Sam sipped the hot chocolate again, studiously ignoring the man on her right. "Did you know Andrew and Caitlin started dating last year?"
"I was aware of it and stop trying to change the subject." Annie resumed her task of wiping Sam's face clear of blood. "You and the General were having a conversation before I interrupted. Finish it."
"It was finished."
"No it wasn't." Jack interrupted with a quick glare at her. "Not by a long shot. However I'd rather we don't have it in front of an audience..."
It was Annie's turn to snort. "This is your only chance, General. You walk out that door without having had this conversation and she'll shut you out for good. I know because I've done it before. With Henry." She smiled softly at the identical looks of surprise on their faces. "I knew Henry before I was inducted into the MIU, Sam. Before he got married. I made the mistake of shutting him out of my life because I didn't want to put him at risk and he moved on."
"You and President Hayes were involved before he was the President?" Sam gaped at her. "How did I not know this?"
"I believe you were a little too young at the time." The corners of Annie's eyes crinkled and she smiled indulgently. "It was a long time ago, Sam. You were still in high school. The MIU hadn't touched you then." Her smile slipped and she touched Sam's cheek tenderly. "I wish it still hadn't."
"Me too." Sam leaned into the touch but her eyes were serious as they locked with Annie's. "It's not your fault. You gave us the choice to join the MIU. You didn't make it an order. It's my fault I'm here, not yours. I made my own choices."
"If you say so." But the guilt didn't fade from her eyes. "But make the right choice now, Sam. Talk to him." She got to her feet, cast Jack a knowing look. "I'll go and brief the others, make sure they follow orders and get some sleep and then I'm coming back to make sure you're okay. I'll be half an hour at most." She left quietly, taking the photographs with her, wishing it was as easy to take the memories from Sam's mind.
"I didn't know that." Sam mused aloud, her gaze once again drawn to the cup in her hands. "I knew there was someone important in her life she'd lost but I assumed he was dead. The way she talked about him sometimes when we got drunk..." She shook her head and sighed softly. "I know we need to talk about this but I don't know what to say."
Jack reached for the cup and took it out of her hands, placing it on the tray before sliding out of the way. "You said everything I needed to hear in the briefing room. Now you need to listen." He shifted slightly so that he was almost sitting in front of her. "You should know better than to think I'm going to turn my back on you. You know some of what I've done, Sam. You know I followed orders and killed people, too. I was ordered to kill you if you remember. And I would have done it if you hadn't told me you were my mark. Hell, I did shoot you. I almost killed you and that's something I have to live with." He lifted a hand to her face when she looked at him, stilling her lips with a gentle finger. "I see faces, too," he murmured, keeping his eyes on hers. "I see people I've killed, people I didn't know but who I was told was the enemy. I see the faces of the people who kept me prisoner in Iraq, the ones who tortured me and I wish I could kill them. I see my son and I see you."
"You didn't kill me and you aren't to blame for Charlie."
"It doesn't matter. You're not to blame for following orders. You're not to blame for Liz or the agent who died today. You still see their faces." His second hand moved to join the first and he cupped her face, holding her tenderly. "Do you see a murderer when you look at me, Sam? A killer?" He felt her try to shake her head, caught the tear that escaped with his thumb. "That's what I see when I look at my reflection and I worry every single day that you're going to look at me and see it too and wonder why you're with me. I don't see a killer when I look at you. I see a beautiful woman with more brains in her little finger than half of the people I know have in their heads. I see the woman who stayed awake all night to watch over Daniel when he decided to drown his sorrows when Sha're died. I see the woman who spent a whole day sitting beside Teal'c's bed when he was recovering from losing his symbiote. I see the woman I love who for some crazy reason I don't understand seems to love me back. You're not a murderer, Sam. You're just you."
She sniffed and lifted her hands to cover his, taking them away from her face and holding them. "Thank you. I don't deserve you to be this understanding. I've been... I hate how I've been acting recently. I hate knowing I've hurt you. It's just... Like you said there should be nothing holding us back now but it didn't feel like that to me."
"Didn't as in past tense?" He brought one of her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "So it feels like it now?"
The smile she gave him was watery at best. "I have to get through this case first. I have to get justice for Katrina and the others. I have to make sure no one else gets killed and then..." She took a deep breath, let it out on a sigh. "Then can we forget the last few days or however long it takes to wrap this up ever happened?"
He didn't answer, just let go of her hands and wrapped his arms around her, letting his chin rest on her head as she shuffled closer. He heard her sigh, felt her relax against him. Listened as her breathing evened out and gradually deepened.
"I guess two out of three isn't bad," Annie commented from her place resting against the doorway. She smiled – slightly – when he looked up at her. "I can trust you to take care of her from here, can't I? Make sure she eats something, get her to change into something clean. I've pushed the briefing back to 1500 hours because we could all use some sleep and if she wakes up after then and realises we're all gone, tell her it's all under control."
"I will."
"Good." Annie nodded at him and turned on her heel, closing the door softly behind her.
He shifted them carefully, trying not to jostle Sam too much, until they were as near to lying down as they could get on the small bed with the tray perched at the bottom of it. When she whimpered in her sleep, her brow furrowing as the faces entered her dreams, he tightened his arms around her and murmured, no real words just soothing noises.
She calmed down, the faces haunting her fleeing for a while and he let his own eyes close, hoping that the only face he saw as he slept was hers, smiling at him because it was over. Because it was finished and they were both alive.
