Chapter 9 - Goodbye

"Samantha Carter, your presence is required in the infirmary."

Sam's heart squeezed as she looked up from yet another simulation that did nothing but confirm what she already knew. Even though she'd been waiting for this call for almost a year, she didn't really feel prepared to receive it. "How is he, Teal'c?"

The Jaffa took a moment to respond. "I do not wish to alarm you, but I do not believe it would be wise for you to delay."

With all the speed she could manage as a woman in her late sixties, she made her way to the infirmary.

Teal'c met her outside the infirmary door, but Sam didn't stop to talk to him. Instead, she went straight to the bed, a smile on her lips as she pressed Jack's unruly hair back from his face and looked down into his brown eyes for what might be the last time. "Let me guess, you couldn't bear to let Teal'c win any more ping pong matches. Thought passing out might get you a win?"

Jack's laughter rattled into a cough. "Aw, come on, Carter." He wheezed. "You know me."

She swallowed down emotion as she nodded. "Yeah, I do, but I know Teal'c too. He's not going to let you out of it that easy. I think if you want the win, you're gonna have to finish the game."

A smile lingered on Jack's face as he squeezed her hand, appreciative of her good humor.

She didn't want to take her eyes away from his face, too afraid that if she blinked, he'd be gone, and that would be the end of it. "You want me to get you anything? Water? Pillow?"

He shook his head. "Stay."

She kissed his forehead, a single tear splashing on his weathered face. "I'm not going anywhere, Jack."

Sometime before she'd gotten there, someone (presumably Teal'c) had moved a stool closer to the bed so she could be closer to him, and she sat just as conflicting voices outside grew louder and more insistent.

Jack grunted as they heard the word Dad on the other side of the metal doors. Sam kissed his forehead and promised she'd be right back when she opened the door to his room. Teal'c stood beside Maggie and Jacob, though Daniel, Vala, and Cam were coming close. Sam glanced behind her before she let the doors close. "Hey."

"Where's Dad? Is he okay?"

"What's going on? Can we see him?"

Sam put a hand up to quell the questions from the anxious twins. "Give me a minute, please. I'd prefer to only have to say this once."

As everyone gathered near, Sam cleared her throat. "I know you've all suspected for some time that Jack's not well. You've also been kind enough to pretend you didn't know. Jack didn't want anyone to worry about something we couldn't do anything about."

"So, he's sick?"

Sam nodded as she looked her daughter in the eye. "Yes. Heart failure."

Maggie drew a sharp inhale the way Sam often did when she faced shocking news. "What can we do?"

Sam shook her head. "I've been working on this for a year and a half. There's nothing we can do."

"Nothing? We've got the damn Asgard core, and we can do nothing to help Dad?"

Sam looked over at Jacob, her heart squeezing at the agony in his eyes. "Like I said, I've been working for a year and a half—"

"Forgive me, but you haven't solved the problem of the Ori blast out the window. Maybe you need a fresh perspective."

Her son's words were a slap in the face.

It was only a minor comfort when even Cam Mitchell grimaced. "Hey, your mom's one of the smartest people I know. If there was someone who could use the Asgard technology to help Jack, it would be her."

Despite how painful his words had been, Sam turned to her son and offered him a gentle smile. It wasn't like she didn't want Jack to be well. She'd give anything if she was wrong, and she got even just one more year with him. "You're welcome to go over what's in the Asgard core and the database. You might be right. I might just need a new perspective."

Jacob nodded, his blue eyes seeming to thank her for not taking offense at his words. His shoulders relaxed considerably as he pressed forward. "What about cloning?"

Sam shook her head. "I already thought of that, and frankly, your dad's already been through that. Jack wouldn't be okay with any of the options cloning might present to us: not transferring his consciousness into another body, not making a clone for the express purpose of organ donation. Besides the fact that none of us could actually perform open-heart surgery, we've been through the cloning thing with him once before, so I'm inclined to agree with his decision. More than that, I think a certain John Neal in Chicago might agree."

The twins exchanged confused looks, and Sam realized they'd likely never told them the story of their father's younger clone on Earth. If they did make it out of here, she should probably warn them lest they walk into a grocery store and find their father's look-a-like in the aisles.

Daniel nodded. "Not to mention that the Asgard went down that road and it led to extinction. The last thing Thor told us before he and his race died was that we should learn from their mistakes. Jack would want to honor that."

"He's still alive, but you're acting like you haven't talked to him about this. Why?"

Sam swallowed. "Because he wants us to spend what time he has left making memories, not obsessing over a plan that, even if it works, might only give him another five years or less. It's why I took him fishing a few weeks ago. It's why I've been cutting back my hours at work."

Maggie flicked a tear from the corner of her eye, her arms crossed as if to protect herself from the pain. "But we can't lose him. I mean, he's our dad."

"I know, Mags, but this is what he wants. Nothing special, just a few more memories."

Jacob sighed, releasing his frustration. "Can we see him?"

Sam touched a hand to his forearm as she nodded. "I think he'd like that."

She moved to bring both twins into the room, but Maggie pulled out of her grasp. "I—I need a minute."

Sam just nodded, understanding the young woman's panic more than anyone probably wanted to admit. "Okay. I'll tell your dad you'll be by later, then."

As Sam turned to open the door, she heard the patter of footsteps rapidly approaching a run. She looked behind her to catch a flash of Maggie's brown curls trailing behind her as she raced away from the infirmary. Her heart ached to soothe her spirit as a single thought seemed to grow in her mind. Can't run from this forever, baby. Believe me, I've tried.

She managed a smile as she looked up at Jacob. "Ready?"

She only earned a grim nod from her son. "As I'll ever be."

It was twenty minutes before Sam exited the room again, hoping that maybe Maggie had calmed down by now.

Daniel brought a tray to the infirmary as he shook his head, knowing before she asked what she was searching for. "Maggie's sparring with Teal'c."

Sam nodded. She should have guessed. That was where Jack had found her after they'd explained to the twins that their entire existence had been lived in a time dilation field, that they were still technically in the middle of a battle as they found years of peace and joy and love in the microseconds between blasts.

It was where Sam had found her after Maggie had shown her first symptoms of blossoming womanhood. It was where Jack and Sam had met her after Maggie screamed that she would never make her children learn either Asgard or science. It was where they'd cried together when Maggie admitted she knew that without leaving the ship, she would never find the kind of love her parents enjoyed, never get a chance to have children.

Sam hesitated, torn between staying with Jack and going after her daughter. Daniel must have read her thoughts because he shook his head. "She's not ready yet, Sam, but she will be."

Sam mustered a smile to thank her friend for encouraging her not to lose hope. "I knew that not telling the kids when we first found out would be risky, but what was I supposed to do? It's what he wanted."

Daniel guided Sam into the couple of chairs Teal'c had set outside the infirmary for any visitors who might need to wait their turn to visit. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine."

Daniel raised an eyebrow as if he didn't believe her.

She shrugged. "I know it sounds strange, but he needs me. I cried all the time when he was stronger, but now, I have to be the strong one, and I can do it for him."

"You know you can be strong and sad, right? The two are not mutually exclusive."

She patted his knee as if to thank him for being her friend. "How are you? I know you've had your suspicions. . ."

Daniel sucked in a breath. "I don't think it's really sunk in yet. I mean, he's the strongest man I know besides Teal'c."

Sam nodded. "I know what you mean."

"It's weird, you know, because we're the only ones who were there when it all got started. And if you would have asked me back then if I thought we'd be best friends now, I would have asked if you were drunk on Ska'ara's moonshine."

Sam grinned at the memory.

Then Daniel's face turned ashen. "I'll be the last one standing, Sam. Sha're, Kasuf, Ska'ara, Kawalski, Ferretti, Jack. . . in a few days, I'll be the last one still alive from that first mission."

Dread settled in Sam's veins like ice. Except for Ferretti's motorcycle accident several years back, they'd all died in the line of duty. None except Jack had lived past the age of seventy; most hadn't made it past the age of forty.

Sam patted Daniel on the back, not sure how to respond. It was the end of an era, and the universe would just keep turning like nothing had changed.

Sam stopped just short of walking into the infirmary, taking a moment to steady herself against the wall before she walked in. Another wave of emotion threatened to undo her, tears slipping down her cheeks silently.

Jack had sent her to her quarters last night so she could get some rest. Teal'c had assured her he would stay with Jack while she rested. The only issue was that she'd spent the night crying instead of sleeping.

"Mom?"

Sam wiped at her cheeks and forced a smile as she turned back to her son. She couldn't do anything about her red, puffy eyes, but she could at least try to minimize the damage. "Hey, Jake. What's up?"

With her current frame of mind, all she could see in her son's lean twenty-four-year-old frame was that picture of Jack he'd had in his house from when he was younger, all decked out in his fatigues and mission gear.

"How's Dad?"

She brushed the hair back from her face, hoping that she looked half as presentable as she normally did. Just because Jack's heart didn't seem to be doing so well right now was no reason to let herself go. That would just worry the kids, and she couldn't bear to do that, too. "I don't know yet, but Teal'c would have called if there was any change."

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

Jacob shuffled his feet. "Pretend like Dad isn't dying, like you didn't spend all night crying."

Sam's heart jumped into her throat. "You heard that, huh?"

He nodded. "The walls may be metal, but they're not soundproofed. I went by to see if you wanted some dinner, but I figured I'd give you some space when I heard."

She patted his arm, the emotion threatening to come up again. "Thank you for respecting my privacy."

"But Mom?"

She looked back up into that face which was so like her husband's it made her heart ache. "Yeah?"

"Why pretend?"

She looked at the door before she gestured for Jacob to walk down the corridor with her. "I do it for your dad."

"You don't think he wants to know you love him?"

Though she ached at the question, she brushed its accidental pain aside in the innocence of youth. "He knows that, Jacob, and even though you haven't been around for it, we have cried together over this diagnosis. More than once."

"So why pretend you're okay now?"

A thousand reasons raced through her mind. "Did your dad ever tell you about the time he and I were trapped on opposite sides of a goa'uld force shield?"

Jacob shook his head. "The closest we can get him to tell us about his Stargate days is when he talks about being in a time loop, but sometimes, what he says is so ridiculous that I can't help but wonder if he's making things up at this point. Anything we learn about those days comes from you, Daniel, and once in a while, Mitchell."

Sam chuckled. "That sounds like your dad."

Though she hadn't tracked the specifics, it sounded about right. Jack, thanks to his years as black ops, preferred to talk about other things than work. Teal'c didn't say much at all. Daniel would let a story slip out before he'd really thought through security clearance issues. Sam would use stories to illustrate points. Mitchell would tell stories and have the twins guess which of the stories was a real mission file and which were television.

Jacob nudged her gently with his shoulder. "Anyway, so you two were on opposite sides of a goa'uld force shield. What happened then?"

Sam rarely revisited this particular memory thanks to everything which had come after it. Za'tarc testing. Admissions of feelings. Martouf. She suspected that was the reason Jack rarely discussed it himself, even with her.

"We were lab rats in a Tok'ra experiment. We wore these armbands, which made us almost superhuman. What we didn't realize was that the armbands wouldn't work forever. Your dad, Daniel, and I tried to destroy a new class of mother ship before it could come and destroy Earth, but before I got through the energy barrier, my armband fell off. Your dad tried to come back and rescue me, but his armband fell off before he could make it to my side of the force shield."

Jacob winced, and she could see from the expression on his face that he understood the special agony it would have been for his parents to be so close and yet so far away from one another.

"We both fell unconscious because of the virus the armbands used to take control of our systems, but when we woke up, your dad went right to work trying to break down the barrier."

"What did you do?"

Sam shrugged. "I did what any responsible, caring soldier would have done. I told him to go save himself. I could hear footsteps behind me, and I knew that any minute, there would be Jaffa. I couldn't let your dad watch me die."

"Because you loved him?"

Sam sighed. "Because I respected him. At the time, I wasn't sure what I felt for him. I just knew that I wanted him safe, and that I didn't want his last memory of me to be my death. It would haunt him and he'd feel responsible. I couldn't do that to him."

She turned to face her son. "You have to understand, Jacob, this was six years before we boarded this ship. Ten years before we got married, almost to the day. I'd had moments when I suspected I was in love with him, but with our working relationship and military ranks, neither of us were going to take the chance that anyone ever figured it out, including ourselves."

Something about that troubled Jacob, and she could read it in his furrowed brow. "So, you almost didn't get married?"

With a heavy heart, she nodded. "Yeah. There were a lot of near misses with us. A lot of reasons why you and your sister might never have become a reality."

"But you guys love each other so much. . ."

Sam nodded. "And a lot of that is because of what I'm trying to illustrate with this story. Your dad doesn't give up. Ever. He tried to destroy the console controlling the force shield. He tried to wear it out by hitting it as hard as he could. Even when I tried to tell him he needed to go, he shouted at me—it was the only time in his life he ever really did—and I could see in his eyes when it clicked for him. He wasn't just trying to rescue another teammate, and my heart broke for him. Broke because I knew what that realization felt like. Broke because I knew that the last thing he would ever want was for me to be pressured into something I might not want. Broke because I knew that even if we somehow got out of that mother ship, there would always be an invisible barrier between us. We would never really be free to even say what we felt."

Jacob mulled over the story, his blue eyes (the only feature it seemed he had inherited from his mother) dark and troubled as he continued to walk.

"Jacob?"

He looked back at her. "Yeah, Mom?"

"If your dad has the slightest inkling that by leaving us behind, we won't be okay without him, he's going to make sure he sticks around."

Jacob swallowed. "Isn't that a good thing?"

Sam pulled her son into a hug, knowing the conflict warring inside him and wishing she could take it away. She bit her lip as she pulled back. "Jacob, I once asked your dad to hang on longer than he could, asked him to become a host to a Tok'ra symbiote to cure him of a virus the rest of us had already been cured of, and he got tortured for it. No matter how much I want him to stay, I'm going to make sure he knows I'll be okay if he has to go. We all will."

Jacob hesitated a moment before he nodded. "Okay."

A slight sniffle from the other side of Jack's bed roused Sam from her light sleep. She must have rested her head on Jack's bed, unwilling to let go of his hand while she slept. She'd pay for that with a crick in her neck and was already paying for it with the pins and needles feeling in her arm.

"Mags."

Sam glanced up to find her daughter, with tears slipping down her nose and onto her father's cheek as she kissed his forehead. "Daddy, I'm so sorry."

"Proud. Of you."

His words were slurred, stilted. Sam hoped it was just because of the morphine, not because he was that close to the end.

Maggie hugged him like a little girl who needed an anchor to the world. "Why, Daddy? What have I ever done to make you proud?"

He patted her back. "Fighter. Like your mother."

Though Maggie just cried harder, Sam had to admit the truth in his words. The characteristic didn't show itself in the same ways, but mother and daughter were equally unwilling to accept the status quo.

"Love you, Maggie Grace."

Another round of sobs. "I love you too, Daddy. I wish you didn't have to go. I wish—"

Maggie looked up and caught sight of Sam, who had tears streaming silently down her own cheeks now. The women reached across and held hands as they comforted their husband and father.

"Sam."

There was something in the way Jack called out for her that was both new and familiar. It had been like this in Antarctica, huddling with him for warmth as he spoke Sara's name, and she pretended to be his wife so he would have a sliver of comfort in what they were sure would be their last moments.

She set the book on the seat she vacated, then carefully climbed in the hospital bed with him. She rested her hand on his chest out of habit, but even now, she could feel how hard his heart was working to keep him anchored to this life.

Jack's hand tightened around her as she turned him to face her, and she kissed him. "Hey."

There were no tears. There had been before, and there would be again, but for this moment, her cheeks were bone-dry, and she was grateful.

Jack looked back at her, his gaze anchored in this moment with her. "Not your fault."

She wore her bravado like armor. "Of course not."

"Carter. . ."

She lifted her eyes to his, a little more vulnerable. "I'll try to remember that."

He coughed onto the back of the hand with the IV. "Don't give up. Promise?"

She nodded. "I promise."

"Was a good life."

Even now, in his final moments with her, his vision was glossed over as if he was looking elsewhere. "Yeah, it was."

She shifted in his arms. "You were the love of my life, you know that?"

She waited for him to make a joke, to tell her that they all said that or something. Instead, he smiled down at her. "Worth waiting for."

A thousand forbidden moments stolen across their years on SG-1 and their whole life on this ship wove a beautiful tapestry in Sam's mind.

She snuggled in, gently patting his chest. "We're going to be okay, Jack. Maggie, Jacob and I, we're going to be fine. You don't need to worry about us."

"Charlie. . ."

Tears moistened her eyes, though they didn't fall. "Yeah, I'll bet he's been waiting a while for you to take him fishing. Can't keep him waiting anymore, huh?"

She lost track of the time as she held him, listening as his breathing shallowed and his heart rate slowed and finally stopped.

A crowd had gathered outside his room by the time she exited. A strange calm had settled over her as she faced the questions in everyone's eyes. She took her children's hands in hers, trying to impart to them the love Jack would have wanted them to feel in this moment.

"Mom?" Maggie's voice trembled as tears threatened to fall down her cheeks. "Is he—?"

Sam just nodded, looking past the crowd of loved ones. How could she feel so alone when she was surrounded by all of these loved ones? She managed a brave smile, though she knew that Daniel and Teal'c at least could read the news in her eyes. "He's gone."

It all felt like a dream: holding Maggie as she cried, forcing herself to eat a bite of the tuna fish sandwich Jacob had made for her, listening to Mitchell tell about Jack's first visit to his hospital room after Antarctica, Daniel catching Sam's hand and reminding her that she wasn't alone, the tears running down Vala's cheeks in sympathy, Teal'c whispering in a mournful tone that O'Neill was his friend and would be sorely missed.

She was numb, like half of herself had gone missing. She wouldn't have made it through the memorial service or through what was essentially the reading of Jack's will without that numbness, but it clouded her mind and made it difficult to concentrate.

He'd given Jacob his chess set. Maggie, his fishing pole. And Sam. . .

"Mom?"

Sam looked up as Maggie set a tray in front of her. Meatloaf. Interesting choice given who was handing it to her.

"You need to keep up your strength."

Sam shook her head. "I'm fine, sweetheart. Not hungry."

Sam pretended not to notice the look Jacob and Maggie exchanged. Undoubtedly, she worried them both, but she just couldn't—

She stood, waving the twins away as they moved to assist her. "I'm just tired. Don't worry about me."

"But we do, Mom."

She patted Jacob's cheek as if to thank him for caring before she walked out of the mess hall and down the corridor to their—to her quarters. The longing hit with such force it almost knocked her over, the first sign in over a week she was still alive and not just going through the motions.

"Samantha Carter?"

Sam turned to find Teal'c with the same look of sorrow that he'd worn the day he'd offered her what words he would have said if he'd been asked to speak at Janet Frasier's memorial service.

The tears came in earnest then, dripping down her cheeks as she fell apart, her mind consumed with the haunting agony of being left behind by the person who mattered most to her in the universe. It was like every cell in her body melted into water, like the agonizing death she'd escaped after Nirrti messed with her DNA.

Her knees almost gave out under the weight of her grief, but the Jaffa took a step forward and caught her. Before she knew it, she was clinging to Teal'c, seeking solace in his arms the way she had when Jack had gone missing with Maybourne. Only this time, it was permanent. This time, there wasn't a chance that they'd find him and bring him home.

For a moment, she wondered if Teal'c's arms were the only things keeping her from splitting into a thousand pieces with the intensity of her grief.

She trembled when she finally pulled away, so exhausted that she could have collapsed to the ground without a second thought. She patted Teal'c's chest as she mentally prepared herself to walk back into their quarters, to lay in a cold bed as Jack's scent lingered in the air. "Thank you, Teal'c. I'll be okay."

The Jaffa didn't let her go until she looked back up in his eyes. "On Chulak, it is customary that the wife of a fallen warrior be watched over by his brethren."

Tears moistened her eyes again. "That's beautiful, Teal'c."

"I shall remain posted outside your door for the space of many days should you require assistance of any kind."

Sam's lip wobbled as she pulled him into another hug. "Jack loved you, you know that? He always thought of you as the brother he never had."

Teal'c's voice was soft and she wondered if she imagined the splash of a tear on her shoulder. "The feeling was mutual, Samantha O'Neill."