Beauty In The Broken

Bits

"We thought that we were saving the world." Doctor Carter shook her head, biting her lip as she planned her next words. "When the Asgard came and purged us of the Goa'uld, Major Kawalsky, General Hammond, and I thought that we'd ended the threat to Earth."

She pressed her lips together, blinking rapidly as her eyes glistened in the light of the lamps around her. With her thumb, she swiped at the corner of her eye, swallowing stiffly. "We were so wrong."

She leaned to her right and grabbed something, holding it up to the camera. It was one of the file folders that Teal'c and the Colonel had been sorting through. "I've compiled a concise history of what happened to us. I guess that it really doesn't matter other than serving as a cautionary tale. Your Earth is so different than ours was. Than it is now. I doubt that your history will repeat ours. I pray that it doesn't."

She exhaled—the sound rough in the quiet of her room. Laying the folder back down, she continued. "Maybe there's something to your theory, Sam. That your participation in the Air Force is what made the difference in your reality."

Carter crossed her arms over her torso, frowning up at the screen. It was as if Samantha's pain were being transmitted through time and space and imbuing itself into her. She ached for the other woman.

"Regardless. Once the smoke had cleared, and people came up for air, the devastation was evident—and unreal. The Goa'uld had wreaked havoc on this planet. Most of the world's major cities had been destroyed, and their surrounding areas—suburbs, smaller towns, bedroom communities—were burning. Our early estimates as to casualties and losses were laughably optimistic. By the time we'd made a decent accounting, we found that more than eighty percent of the world's population was gone. They'd simply been erased from existence."

She opened the file folder and rifled through the papers in it. Notes, perhaps, or simply the facts that she was recounting. "The Goa'uld targeted Washington DC early in its attack. We lost the President and the Vice President. The entire Cabinet and all of the Joint Chiefs were killed. The White House was a hole in the ground, as was the Capitol complex. We were left with four senators and twenty-seven members of the House of Representatives, all of whom had been outside DC when the attacks began. Everyone in the Pentagon was just vaporized."

Hammond made a noise deep in his chest, scooting his chair closer to the table, he leaned forward and braced himself on his elbows.

"And it wasn't just us. Most of the other world's nations were similarly affected. France, the UK, Russia, China, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Indonesia. Hell—Apophis even wiped out Honolulu before heading down to Auckland and moving on to Sydney."

Sam leaned over, reaching for the chair where she'd slung her jacket a few minutes before. Pulling it close, she lowered herself to sit.

"You don't really think about what happens afterwards. You know? But how do people survive when there aren't enough people to facilitate survival? No efficient farming, no industry, no manufacturing. No clean water, no sewer services. Power grids failed, and the planet went dark. All established transportation and distribution apparatus fell apart. Wide-scale looting, theft, and violence were all common as people fought for supplies and food. Those who relied on medications to survive—insulin, or statin drugs—simply died. There was nobody to make them, and no facilities in which to do it. Besides, the pharmacies and hospitals were either destroyed or had been cleaned out."

She paused, simply staring ahead—not at the camera in her device, but into the air in front of her. Remembering, or mourning. Her grief was echoed plainly in the brightness of her eyes, the tightness of her voice.

"And they were angry." She found the camera again, her eyes wide. "Maybe justifiably so—I don't know. Looking back, I don't think that anyone could have—-or would have—-done better than we did. But survivors of the devastation were so very angry. They blamed us—the Americans. The SGA—they blamed us for everything. They were especially infuriated at the secrecy surrounding the 'Gate and our operations. They were angry because we'd known that the attack was imminent and hadn't been able to do anything to prevent it. Because we hadn't stopped it once it started."

The Colonel shook his head, leaning back in his chair. He ran his fingers through the haphazard mess that was his hair, his jaw pulsing tightly.

"You know what they say about nature abhorring a vacuum." Samantha leaned a little back in her chair. "Well, there was a vacuum of massive proportions on the planet. No working government anywhere meant that the worst of society—the most authoritarian, the most self-serving—rose to power. Wealthy oligarchs, terrorist groups, cult leaders, drug cartels. They began to fill in where governments had failed, seizing authority over areas and people. After only a few weeks, the world had been partitioned off into territories controlled by warlords. They seized food, supplies, warehouses, and any hospital that was still standing. And of course, they all wanted more control."

Here, she paused, folding her hands in front of her on the desk where she sat. Looking down, she bit her lips together, seeming to fight for control. "I reached out to the Asgard again. I sent messages several times, but received no answer. We needed help to stabilize our world, or we were going to devolve into complete chaos and anarchy."

Sam closed her eyes against the feelings that threatened to overpower her. Even though it wasn't this Earth, her reality that had been affected, Sam still felt the frustration, terror, and panic to her core. What Samantha was describing was beyond horrific. How she'd survived it—Sam couldn't even begin to guess.

"We fought back as best as we could. The remnants of our military, combined with forces from other nations, struggled to secure the peace. But communication issues, along with the lack of reliable intel, hampered those efforts. Still, after a few months, those remaining members of our government, along with surviving leadership from other nations, had combined to form what became known as the Planetary Security Council."

O'Neill grimaced, rolling his eyes. "Stupid name."

Her tone softened, and her words sounded almost like an afterthought—as if she were talking to herself. "Jack would have hated that name."

Samantha smiled, her gaze shifting off to one side. Sam would have bet her entire life's savings that Doctor Carter was looking at the wedding picture—the same one that the Colonel had tilted in her direction earlier.

Sam couldn't help it. She angled a glance across the room, smiling inwardly as the Colonel's eyes widened, his brows edging upwards. He raised a hand to scratch his ear, sinking further into his chair as he assiduously avoided meeting anyone else's eyes.

The Doctor continued. "He would have hated the Council. Hell—-he would have hated everything about the whole damned situation. He would have hated being put in the position that we were put in. But it was our best hope, in light of the state of the planet, and the fact that our pleas to the Asgard were met with silence."

"Wait a minute. Hold on. I wonder when this was." Daniel's voice broke through the heavy atmosphere in the briefing room. "Teal'c? Do you have that file?"

Uheda pressed a button on Samantha's computer, pausing the recording.

On the other side of the table, Teal'c sorted through the pile of papers in front of him until he'd found the folder that Doctor Carter was referencing. He turned pages until he found a specific annotation. "The Planetary Security Council Treaty was signed on March eleventh of that year. It appears that representatives of one hundred and three nations participated in the treaty's signing, and sixteen other countries declined. Representatives for eighty-four more countries were not able to be located due to the devastation."

"March. General, that was when I had my appendix taken out." Daniel stood, gesturing towards O'Neill. "Remember? Jack—Thor beamed you out of the SGC and aboard the Beliskner."

"We were supposed to be on leave." Carter added. "I was studying the decay rate of naquadah. The Colonel was there with me for a while. He was transported out as soon as he left."

"Why was Jack in your lab?"

"No reason." O'Neill's gaze lit on her briefly before returning to Jackson. "Just hanging out. Helping. Keeping her company."

"He asked me if I wanted to go fishing."

"I mean—Daniel was in the infirmary, and we had some leave, so—-" His voice trailed off into awkward nothingness.

"But I was studying the naquadah, so I turned him down." Even to Sam, it sounded lame. "I thought that was more important."

"Yes. As usual. It's always something." He'd tried to make a joke of it, but failed. The Colonel's lips thinned as he sighed. "What's your point, Daniel?"

"Well, no wonder Thor didn't answer Doctor Carter and the SGA."

Sam sat up in her chair, gesturing towards Daniel with an open hand. "If the Colonel hadn't been transported aboard the Beliskner, it would have eventually been overrun by the Replicators."

O'Neill groaned. "Of course. Thor never would have thought that we could help him, so he wouldn't have come to our galaxy. He wouldn't have known that stupid people were useful to him."

Daniel traced a random line on the map in front of him with a finger. "He'd have relied on the Asgard's own technology, which would have accomplished nothing, and then been absorbed into the replicators' systems, and his mission would have failed. The Beliskner would have been consumed."

Teal'c closed the folder he'd been holding, placing it carefully on the pile in front of him. "Which means that, in all likelihood, Thor is dead in Doctor Carter's reality."

General Hammond shifted in his seat, his expression grim. "Sergeant Uheda, please continue the recording."

Doctor Carter blipped back to life on the screen. "All this time, I'd been hiding out at the SGA. General Hammond, Major Kawalsky—all of us—had basically taken up residence in Cheyenne Mountain. We were trying to protect the 'Gate, the technology we'd gained, and the systems we'd engineered. Keep it all from the warlords, the cartels, and from the public."

The tension in the briefing room was palpable as they waited for Doctor Carter to continue.

"But once the treaty was signed, the Council started making changes in the Mountain. General Hammond was replaced, along with the rest of the SGA leadership. They kept me, and treated me reasonably well. I wasn't threatening, and they needed my knowledge of the 'Gate and its systems. I wasn't a prisoner, but it was clear that they wouldn't like it if I left. I didn't fight. I wanted to remain close to the 'Gate in case Thor made contact."

She looked downward, scooting papers back and forth in front of her. "It's all in the material I brought through the mirror with me. I made copious notes as to the series of events. They changed leadership, then procedures. One day, the PSC began moving its own armed forces into the Mountain. I don't even know where these forces came from, but they were well-armed. Well trained. Mercenaries, maybe, or militia members looking for steady rations. They were just there. And I was surrounded. So, I stayed in Cheyenne Mountain. I did what I was told."

Frowning into the camera, she shook her head, her eyes clouding a bit. "Maybe I was a coward. Maybe I should have fought more. But that wasn't really an option, for reasons we'll get to. But once the PSC was in complete control, we finally heard from the Asgard."

She paused, pushing her hair back behind her ear as she prepared her next words. "Only, it wasn't Thor who contacted us. It was another of the Asgard leadership. It turns out that the Asgard were going through some political turmoil of their own at the time. Thor had been killed in battle, and his body hadn't been recovered, which meant that he couldn't be cloned and restored. A new Supreme Commander, an Asgard named Baldr, was subsequently elected to lead their people."

"I knew it!" Daniel raised up a little in his seat, then sat back down, looking around sheepishly. "Sorry. But I called that one."

"Baldr and Thor had been rivals for a while, and while Thor believed in extending Asgard protection and help to less technologically-advanced species, Baldr held more isolationist philosophies, and didn't agree that aiding in the development of other races benefited the Asgard people."

"Sorry. Hold on." Samantha reached to one side, grasping a glass of water and bringing it to her lips. "I'm not used to talking so much anymore."

After a few more swallows, she set the glass down and began again. "I had been hoping that Thor would come to Earth and use the Beliskner to help us to gather up survivors and start relocation efforts in order to establish new settlements and safe zones. What we got instead was a data dump. Baldr instructed his aides to compile all the information that the Asgard had gleaned from their surveys and study of Earth over the past millennia and just ship it on through the 'Gate. Once we had it all, he wished us well and basically asked us to lose his number."

"What a schmuck." Jack stood suddenly, pointing at the monitor as he stepped around to the back of his chair. "That is a dick move."

"All of which brings me to this." Samantha grimaced, obviously and suddenly uneasy. "When I came through the quantum mirror a little more than a year ago, I had no idea that I was pregnant. Just barely-–a few weeks at the most. Nothing that would have shown up on any of the normal tests."

Samantha smiled—a wistful expression that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Jack and I wanted children. Neither of us had ever had the opportunity or the inclination before we met. Hell—-neither of us had been married before. Marriage and family weren't things that I'd ever really wanted. I guess that's one way in which you and I were more alike than different, Sam."

She looked down at her hand, visible in the camera's angle, the diamond of her engagement ring winking in the lamp light. There was a sheen of polish on her nails.

"But once I met him, I—" She faltered, raising one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. Angling away from the camera, she pressed her fingertips to her lips, blinking rapidly as she considered her next words. "Once I met him, I wanted it all. We both did. So, to lose him, and then to find out that I was carrying his child was both a blessing and what seemed like a cruel joke."

Carter stared down at her own hands, her short, serviceable nails, the nicks, cuts, and callouses that she'd earned in the lab, the range, or in battle. No polish, no rings, no fuss. So different from those hands on screen, yet for all intents and purposes, the same.

Sam thought again of the first time she'd been confronted with her alternate self—over a year ago—when she'd sat across this very table from Doctor Samantha Carter-O'Neill and felt like she was a copy of an original—only the carbon had been offset just enough to make things blurry.

So many things they shared were the same. The same eyes, expressions, body, voice—

And yet, so many things were askew. No Sara—no dead son for Samantha's Jack. No sparkling wedding rings, and no child for this Earth's Major Carter.

Sam couldn't help it. She looked over at the Colonel, only to find him standing perfectly still behind his chair, his hands deep in his pockets. He was staring down at his boots, as if they held the secrets to the universe within their leather uppers. And his visage—Sam knew that particular tilt to his lips, that set of his jaw, how his eyes seemed to grow darker, more drawn. As if he was reliving something both beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. It was an expression that Sam had seen before.

Only a few months ago, in fact, as O'Neill had argued with the alien archaeologist on P4X-639. As he'd remembered his son. As he'd remembered losing that son.

And then, more recently, when his mind had been overwritten, and he'd forgotten what he wasn't allowed to have. Who he wasn't allowed to be. In forgetting, he'd been allowed to become something else.

They. They had been allowed to become something else. Something transcendent.

Her eyes landed on the Colonel again, only to find him looking back at her with an intensity that she instantly recognized—instantly remembered. A connection flared between them so profound that she could feel the memory washing over her as clearly as if his hands were still upon her.

Jonah had been patiently indignant on her behalf, his frustration carving harsh lines into his jaw even beneath his omnipresent stubble.

They'd met in the cool, shadowed recess behind the distillery units—more closed-off and protected than the areas behind the furnaces. Thera had known he'd be there, just as he'd known that she would have neglected to secure herself a meal. Leaning down, he'd laid her tray on the ground near the pallet he'd stashed there a few weeks before.

When she was angry, she never wanted to eat. So, he'd let her rant until her temper had fizzled, until she'd finally calmed down. Then, he'd handed her a piece of the mystery meat off her tray and waited expectantly until she'd taken a bite.

It was only then that he'd spoken. "They're afraid of you."

"Afraid of what?" Swallowing, she'd slumped against the wall, wincing when she thwacked the back of her head on the rough bricks. "I'm a worker, just like everyone else. There's nothing to be afraid of."

Jonah stepped closer, his brows low. "You're smarter than everyone else down here, Thera. They're afraid of you because they know it. And you're a threat to them because you know it."

"That's stupid." She'd watched him until he was next to her, nearly touching her, but not. Close enough that she could feel the strength of his body, could smell the herbs they infused into the workers' soap. She reached for him first, laying her palm to rest where his heart beat in his chest. "I'm no threat to anyone. I'm nothing special."

His body blocked the ambient light that managed to eke in between the distillery units, cosetting them in an intimate shadow. Even so, Thera could see his teeth glinting when he'd smiled. "Nothing special, huh?"

"Jonah." She'd breathed his name more than spoken it, tilting her chin down to watch as his fingers finessed one button of her tunic free. Then another. And another. "I'm not—"

But then, she lost her ability to speak as his lips teased against the side of her throat, as his hand slid into the opening of her tunic and began soothing at her skin, as delicious shivers spread across her body, overcoming her anger, her reason. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the movements of his hands, his lips, his tongue—barely noticing when he'd gently shifted their positions, taking her weight as he'd lowered them both to the pallet.

"You're more than special, Thera." He'd nuzzled this against her lips, inhaling the purr she'd emitted, grinning as her fingertips worked at the drawstring of his trousers. "You're everything."

Everything.

Sam forced herself back to the present, squeezing her eyes closed against the images still tumbling through her mind. She was losing it. Losing any semblance of control that she'd gathered in the past few hours. Losing her mind, maybe. What little of it was left, anyway.

Carefully, she schooled her breathing, willing her heart to calm, her pulse to quiet. She looked down at the floor, the blush in her cheeks heating her skin. Certain that he'd know, if he were still looking—surely he'd be able to tell where her thoughts had led her.

This was insanity. She was slowly going insane.

She wiped all emotion from her face, schooling her countenance into something more benign, then refocused on the monitor, where Samantha was only just getting back to her story. Sam listened past the blood still pounding in her ears, past the way her breath still caught in her throat.

"Anyway. So, that was another reason that I stayed in the SGA. There were medical resources here, and relative safety. And once the Asgard unloaded thousands of years' worth of research on us, the PSC expected me to help sort through it all just in case something there would help us rebuild Earth's societies and guard against further Goa'uld incursion."

Here, she hesitated, gazing meaningfully into the camera of her computer. "And I did find something. Only—I couldn't have imagined what it would mean for me and for my child."

Samantha Carter-O'Neill sighed heavily, staring steadily into her camera, her eyes darkening from cerulean to azure, her face going visibly more pale. She took two–three–four bracing breaths, stirring up her will, or her courage. After what seemed like forever, she spoke again. "And what it could mean for you, Sam. For you and Jack."