The Entity called Love

Feelings and missing scene from "Entity"

His heartbeat is jacked, but his hand is steady. The second shot takes her down, and he knows it's over. He's done it before. Killed people. But never the person he loves. It's the first time he truly admits to that feeling. It takes over and stops any other thought from forming.

He loves her.

He killed her.

As the med team lifts Carter onto the gurney, her arm falls lifelessly to the side, and with it, his heart drops to shatter. Jack's mind has no control over his body as he reaches out and gently puts her arm back. From then on, everything happens in slow motion. Carter is rushed to the infirmary—Dr. Fraiser is sitting on top of her trying to pump life back into her body. He follows them with his eyes, unable to move away from the spot he killed her. The image of her lifeless body on the ground is burnt into his retina, and Jack doubts he can ever walk this corridor again. A flicker in the lamp above him draws his attention. He looks up, and there it is again. Another slight flicker almost a blink.

"Jack."

He hears from faraway. It might be Daniel; it might be Hammond. But he can't get his eyes to move away from the light. It flickers again. Carter is dead.

Hours have passed since they hooked up Carter to the machines that produce a mere illusion of hope. The hope of her coming back only given enough time. Jack knows that's just a lie his mind has formed to protect him from breaking apart the way his heart has already. He hasn't left her side. Not when Daniel and Teal'c had come. Not when Hammond was there. Not when the machine had some technical hiccup, and Fraiser had to reanimate her a second time.

Jack's not a man of great belief. Life has taught him that prayers stay unanswered. Nevertheless, he looks up when the Doc is fighting for Carter's life, and there he sees it again. A flicker in the light above him. When the Doc gets things under control, she let out a sigh. He can see the tears swelling up in her eyes and wants to give her comfort. But how can he? He was the one that killed her friend.

The coffee Daniel has brought him is cold by now. Jack can't get himself to move yet to look at her face. So he fumbles with a pen. Deconstructing it and putting it back together, but he must have lost a piece because it just won't fit anymore. No matter how hard he tries, the pieces won't go back together to form a functioning item. Jack doesn't know which part he lost, but he does know that without Carter, his life will be like this pen. Incompletely. Broken. Useless.

When Daniel suggests that it's Carter IN the fucking nest, Jack doesn't dare to hope. When Fraiser says the pattern match Carter's brain waves, he doesn't allow himself even to think this is possible. When Carter gasps for air, he doesn't believe it's her. Only when she opens her eyes, and they are soft and blue and the ones he has fallen in love with, Jack knows she is back. He's been through various stages of denying, then admitting to himself how he feels for Carter. Now he knows it's nothing he's ever felt before. It's bigger than love. Bigger than anything.

It takes him every inch of self-control to prevent him from touching her. Being denied its purpose—its only place to go—his hand drops onto her bed instead. He taps the bedding, and when his fingers hit the soft material, he suddenly feels her fingers on his. It's only a brief moment of contact but with the same implications of a hug or even a kiss. While their hands separate, their eye contact is unbroken, becoming stronger with every second that passes. She's back. He has killed her.

He has stopped counting how often he has walked by the infirmary. For sure, once too often because this time, Fraiser stands there as if she has been waiting for him.

"You can go in, you know?" Janet says, and her eyes are boring into him. There's this look in them. The one she had after the Zar'Tarc moment. And now that he sees it again, he realizes that she had the same expression after they came back from P3R-118. He wonders how much Carter has told her. Or how much the medical tests have.

"She's awake," Fraiser adds with a soft smile. "Teal'c and Daniel have visited her already. No one is in there," she lets the sentences linger in the air.

"How is she?"

"Why don't you ask her yourself?"

Jack lets out a breath and switches from one foot to the other.

"Colonel," Janet says as if talking to a scared relative—maybe even a lover. "You made the right decision. You saved the base. And probably our planet."

His military brain knows that. The Colonel in him is satisfied that he was able to sacrifice her over the fate of the planet. Even if it's his teammate. Even more so if it's someone he has inappropriate feelings for. It says how much he feels for her that the voices which have guided him through the past 20 years are now muted.

"It shouldn't have been so hard," Jack mumbles, and as the words leave his mouth, he wishes he could pull them back and swallow them. Instead, they venture out. Into Fraiser's ears, into her brain where they turn into the confirmation of what she has assumed ever since he was lost on Edora and heard confirmed at the Zar'Tarc test. Two of her friends have the strongest feelings for each other, and all they can do is to deny them.

"And I shouldn't have reanimated her a second time. That was against her will. But I couldn't do it. And now we have her back."

Jack smiles a wary smile, thankful for what Fraiser is doing here.

"She asked for you," Janet says.

Because he still doesn't react, Janet let's out a sigh and says, "The security cameras are still down on this level. The incident must have burnt the circle."

He must look as flabbergasted as he feels because all she does is lift her arms in surrender and heads back into the infirmary. Jack is not sure what to think about this comment. They haven't broken the rules, yet Fraiser's words remind him that even feeling the way he feels is breaking all the rules.

Jack waits some more seconds before he takes a deep breath and steps into her room. Meeting a Goa'Uld or deadly Replicators would be easier. When Jack opens the door, he sees the woman he loves, the woman he killed, and it chokes his throat.

"Hey," Carter says with a weak voice.

He answers with a one-sided smile, afraid his voice will give it all away. One look and he knows she can read him.

"You did the right thing," Carters says, and he loves her even more and despises himself even more.

"Carter." It means 'don't be so forgiving.'

"I'm back." It means 'We're okay.'

As if her words cut the shackles that have held him back, he jumps forward and only comes to a stop right next to her bed. She looks at him with big blue eyes. Now all hers again. It's too much to handle, and he looks up to the light above their heads. This time there's no flicker. When he looks down to meet her eyes, he feels a flicker in his heart.

He's a dead man.

He is hers.

Always.