Back in order

Missing scenes for "Lost City 1+2".

Colonel Jack O'Neill is a man true to his words. Not too long ago, he said to Sam: "We'll gonna fight the Goa'Uld with everything we've got." Now he has unleashed a powerful weapon that defeated Anubis at the cost of his life. It is what they do. Putting everything before their own lives. Sam didn't expect it any other way, yet seeing him there, frozen behind the surprisingly warm glass-like surface staring at her with empty eyes, rips a hole in her chest deep enough to swallow everything around her. She stares at him, trying to read him the way she usually can. But this time, he is hemmed inside himself. Impossible to say what's left inside the shell that looks like him but is now filled with knowledge from another time, another race.

"Sam," comes somewhere from a different galaxy.

She closes her eyes and makes a promise that no matter the costs, she's going to find a way. She will bring him back, even if it will take years. Even if by then her blond has turned white and lines have carved the years of trying to find a solution into her face. Even if it costs her job. Even if it costs her life. She's going to save the man that saved them all because saving him is what she does. Always did. Always will. It's the only way to value what she feels for him. The only way to make him feel it too.

"Sam."

It's Daniel. Somewhere a million lightyears away from her.

She has so much practice with sweeping up her shattered feelings and stuffing them into the room that her face is almost back in place when she turns around to Daniel and Teal'c. Only for a heartbeat, her helplessness shows before the perfect soldier mask slips back on, and determination fills her eyes and her heart. They will fix this. And they better get started right now.

Daniel is either not fast enough to register the change in her demeanor, or he knows it's pretend because he puts his hand on her arm and says something like it's going to be okay—just that it's never going to be okay. Not when it comes to Sam and Jack. In the very end, when one of them is about to die, they will always be more than just Colonel and Major, and they will always have to hide it.

"Hey," Daniel pokes his head into Sam's office, the place she hasn't left in a week trying to figure out a solution to bring Colonel O'Neill back. She has considered everything humans can think of short of googling 'How to defrost the guy I'm secretly in love with, and only now that he's probably dead, I allow myself to remember how I feel for him.'

Sam closes her laptop and stretches, her bones crack from hours hunched over a computer.

"Any news?"

"No, they are still negotiating over responsibility for the Antarctic outpost…"

Sam gets up and starts pacing her office. Colonel Jack O'Neill is the greatest hero the world has ever seen. He has sacrificed his life multiple times and just recently saved the world yet again, and now he is wall decoration in some icy Ancient palace.

"It's politics," Daniel explains.

Sam makes a sound very similar to one Jack used to make as soon as there was talk about politics.

"What about the Asgards?"

"We've tried to contact them. Believe me."

Sam slumps back into her chair, then looks up and smiles apologetically.

"I'm sorry. It's just…"

"I know,' Daniel says, unaware that these were some of the last English words Jack had muttered to Sam in the romantic light of Goa'Uld crystals reflecting of gold walls. Considering that Sam had tried again to tell him how she felt about all of this, him, them—at least something along those lines—his answer, or cut off couldn't have been any shorter. Sam still tries to decipher what she saw in his eyes at that moment. For once, she hadn't been able to read him. Maybe because of the ancient knowledge in his brain or because he doesn't feel the same way anymore.

Daniel pushes a white envelope over the table. It is thick—at least four pages must be stuffed inside this bringer of thoughts and feelings and possibly confessions, all scribbled with the same neat handwriting that embellishes the front with the word: Carter. Her name in his writing looks as strange as anything but Carter out of his mouth feels. Sam's fingers start to tremble, and tears are threatening to roll over her, so she keeps her hands to herself and her eyes on his handwriting and asks the rhetorical yet only question that comes to mind because she doesn't want to know the answer because it means it's the end and it's not. She asks, "What is this?"

"Jack gave it to me before we left for Procarush Taonas. He gave me one letter for each of us. One for Cassie too."

Sam can feel Daniel's eyes on her, but she can't quite get herself to look up.

"It helps to read his words."

"He is not dead." It comes out sharp and hurts Daniel just the way intended. If he has given up, fine, she hasn't.

"Sam…"

Of all people, she doesn't need Daniel to stop believing. He needs to be on her side, going crazy lengths, not sleeping. Not going home to a serious boyfriend who somehow is suspiciously quiet after he heard that Jack O'Neill is MIA and doesn't interrupt her with begs for coming home when she is staying in mountain day after day after day.

Argh, she curses herself. This is not about her. This is about getting Colonel O'Neill back, but given her recent reputation after the incident with Dr. Lee, she can't be the only one committed. So she starts telling Daniel about her plan to get in contact with the Asgards. If she's walking into a meeting with Weir to make her sign off on a genuinely cuckoo plan, it can't sound like her idea. It needs to come from all of them. But that's mostly good intentions because in the end she blackmails Weir and now she's hiding on a farm bathroom from Pete or better said Fifth who still thinks he can convince Sam that this, Pete and the horses and all of it, is her real life.

How could Fifth have gotten it all so wrong? It makes her wonder if she is that good at lying to herself that even Fifth believes the thoughts that are swimming on the surface are what she wants. She would never give up her job for Pete or anyone really. She would never be happy just living life.

Besides, Fifth should know that she had left Pete in a fight. The evening before she and Teal'c had embarked on their trip to find the Asgards in another galaxy to ask them to rescue Colonel O'Neill's, she left the base and spent the night with Pete. It was a beautiful evening. At least when they were together, she didn't think about Colonel O'Neill—yeah, well not all the time. But of course, the conversation led to telling Pete that she was leaving for an indefinite time with the possibility of not returning.

Right after Pete had come to know about her job, they promised each other to be honest when to came to missions that would be especially risky. So far, Pete had been understanding and never asked her not to go—not so this time. First, he was taciturn. Barely reacted when Sam told him that she would be gone for at least two weeks traveling to another galaxy and that the ship they were going to use wasn't built for such a trip. He started to pace when she told him that she might not come back. And then, for the first time since he knew about the Stargate program and that everything she said was the maximum she would tell him, he asked: Why? Of course, she didn't answer. Instead, Sam got angry and told him she was simply doing her job. Unfortunately, Pete had done the math—he knew Colonel O'Neill was missing, and it didn't take much to figure out that Sam was going to rescue him. With that knowledge, something snapped in Pete. He begged Sam to stay. To not leave on a possibly deadly mission for her probably dead boss. That was the moment she grabbed her bag and fled back to base.

Now, being stuck in this replicator fantasy world, Sam is glad she called Pete before she left. He didn't understand, he wasn't okay with it, but he had begged her to make it back to him, and she really wants to keep the promise she made, just right now it's not looking so good. Also, there's another promise she made to another man. But Sam quickly shoves those thoughts back into the maximum-security room in her heart—the one even Fifth doesn't seem able to access. He doesn't pick up on the feelings that are so deep inside of her that sometimes even she forgets them.

Only when Fifth tells Sam that the one she calls O'Neill has found them and her heart jumps up and starts racing in her chest realization hits the replicator: he tried to persuade her with wrong fantasy all along. A recognition that is coming too late because next thing Sam remembers is him. Colonel O'Neill is rushing to her side as she lies on the moist, soft forest ground. His hands are pulled towards her like she's a black hole, and he just a moon. He stops short from touching her. Oh, it's butterflies and fireworks and all other cliches all at once when she looks into his brown eyes, and he smirks at her.

"You okay?"

"Glad to see you, Sir."

"Likewise."

They've made it once again. Colonel O'Neill, short one of his nine lives and Sam, well Sam, even more confused about her feelings, but right now, joy is dominating it all.

"Whatcha doing?"

Sam is sitting in her lab, playing with the golden stars that used to decorate her shoulders when she hears Colonel O'Neill's voice. She turns around to find him leaning in the doorframe. His tie is loose around his neck and the top button of his shirt open.

"You're missing your party."

"Actually, it's your party, Sir."

"Even worse then," he says with a boyish grin and pulls a plate with a slice of cake from behind his back. He steps closer, and Sam grabs the fork he is offering her.

"Is this part of the base commander's duties, General?"

It's borderline insubordinate paired with using his new rank for the first time. As always, he's rather pleased than offended by it and puts the cake on the table.

"Only for certain Colonels."

Hearing him call her Colonel does all kinds of things to her insides. They twist and turn and tingle. Oh, this feels so good. Colonel! She is proud, humbled, and cocky all at once. This is what she lives for: Her job. And this honor coming directly from him is the best thing she felt in a very long time.

"Colonel," Sam repeats.

"I think you'll get used to it very quickly," General O'Neill replies.

He knows her well.

They look at each other with all sorts of new feelings mixed into this cocktail of respect, and well, yes, a tiny bit of love is in there too, until General O'Neill digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out a little leather box.

Sam is no illusionist or romantic person, and yet for a brief second, her heart stops. It kicks back in right again and pumps a different feeling through her veins when he says, "I thought you might want to keep your Major stars in here."

When she opens the box, she reads his name: Colonel Jonathan O'Neill.

"You gave me your Colonel insignia?"

He nods with a smirk while her heart is about to burst with gratitude. She's so lucky to have him as her commanding officer. He's the best soldiers the world has seen, the best a man can be. He is her mentor, and he believes in her more than anyone else in the world.

"Thank you. That means a lot to me."

He waggles her thanks away, but his eyes reveal his happiness.

"Thanks for not letting me veg out as popsicle."

"Always, Sir."

And then it comes hot at her. The letter. The one she never opened. Because he wasn't dead and because he wouldn't let her tell him how she feels, so she wouldn't read his letter. She's not sure about the implications of her next move. But somehow it's right. She has decided to move on. It feels like a lot of things click into place, pieces she hadn't known were scattered around the recesses of her brain. Even though Fifth had gotten it all wrong, she likes the idea of being with Pete more than just 'not serious.' Fifth made her wonder what could be. Pete can handle her job, most of the time, so maybe they can work it out.

Sam opens her top drawer and pulls out the letter. The paper under her finger feels like it's alive and that it might have the power to change her mind, so she quickly puts it on the table and pushes it towards General O'Neill just like Daniel handed it to her.

The emotions that cross his face for only a blink are not easy to read. It could be relief, could be disappointment, so Sam follows up with an explanation.

"You weren't dead."

The right corner of his lips curls up, and he nods. He reaches for the letter only to push it back slightly.

"Keep it. There will be another occasion."

"You might want to rewrite…"

"I'm a simple man, Carter. I don't change my mind."

What is that supposed to mean?

He heads for the door, and as he leaves, says with a tease in his voice, "Just don't use it to blackmail your new base commander."

Thanks, samsg1 for the word 'popsicle. It's so Jack. As always: Comments are my motivation.