The steady, rhythmic drumming of the heart monitor next to him did nothing to reassure him that he was finally home. He stared at the grey concrete ceiling, and for what he swore seemed like the hundredth time, batted away a nurse that was a little too needle happy for his liking.
They made it all the way to the long clearing before Sam before to stir. He had tried to warn them – tried to tell them that she wasn't the same Sam Carter she was six months ago.
His team visited him. They tried to talk to him, and for the most part, he joked back. It had been two weeks since they'd been back, and they told him he had been in a coma-like state for over a week of it. He sure as hell felt like he had been put through the ringer, and he almost wished he could be back there – in a coma, unfeeling, unable to remember.
Her body underneath him, as he slammed into her, quivered. He felt her bones break beneath him, and he felt her skin crack underneath his fingernails. He could see the moment she lost consciousness – her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she seized against him.
He didn't feel like talking much. Really, his head was foggy and he was waiting for the moment that this trip would end and he'd be back on the floor of Baal's torture chamber, watching as Baal pierced Carter's skin with another crude utensil. Her beautiful, bruised, broken skin that felt so thin beneath his fingers.
He heard Teal'c's grunt before he even noticed that he was no longer being held up by Jacob and Daniel. Looking around, he saw that Sam had jumped off Teal'c's back and began running. He had been mildly surprised she was able to get away from Teal'c so easily, but he didn't underestimate a woman in shock.
He thought he'd try to get Janet to commission someone to paint the ceiling of the infirmary. He had memorized every speck of imperfect cement, and was convinced if he hadn't already lost his mind, the blankness would definitely cause it to happen. Daniel had suggested maybe painting the universe on it, but the pun fell flat, and Jack began to realize he didn't know if he could come back from this. Exploring the galaxy didn't seem so magical when there were villains on the other side waiting for them.
It didn't take long for them to catch her, and she began to scream. When they realized that she wouldn't stop, and that if she didn't they'd certainly be found again, Teal'c had to zat her. It wasn't an easy decision, and they bickered for it for a while, but they finally made it back to the gate. Jack ran the rest of the way on his own, but he kept his eyes on Carter in Teal'c's arms. He noticed again how her cheeks were red, and her skin was unmarred, save for the scars on her back. He had to give it to the guys, they hadn't even flinched when they saw her, naked and scarred, but he knew they were in defense mode. The farther you looked, though, the worse she got. She might have had some color, but she had lost a lot of healthy weight, and her hair was long but thin. Her skin sunk into her, like her body was trying to consume anything it could to keep itself alive.
He noticed the glances between them when he asked them how Carter was. They gave vague answers, and he demanded to see her. Relunctantly, Janet agreed. She tried to force him into a wheelchair, but he stubbornly pushed it away and followed the small doctor to one of the observation room windows.
SG-6 held the 'gate for them, but it was tight. They were narrowly dodging staff blasts, and Jack had to hand it to Teal'c for carrying Carter and remaining un-hit. He noticed that the other team was as no worse for wear as his, and he also noticed the uncomfortable glances between them when they saw Carter's nakedness. They quickly looked away when they saw him watching them, and they all entered efficiently through the gate. On the other side, gurneys were waiting, and Sam was immediately covered and wheeled away. He tried to argue that he was fine, but Janet ordered him to sit on a gurney. Everyone was looking at him like he was a monster, like he was going to snap, and his head began to swim. And as suddenly as he was back home, he was unconscious again.
Looking down at the small bed, it took him a moment to see Carter underneath the blankets. Seeing her here, objectively, was like looking at a porcelain doll, made perhaps by an artist who had little time to complete his work. She was pale, but her eyes were dark, and her hair fell around her head like a burnt-out halo.
"She woke up once. She was asking for you," Janet sounded nervous. He looked at her, and noticed that she avoided his gaze.
"Yeah?"
"She kept calling you a 'murderer.' She kept asking for Baal. She called herself 'Hadad.'"
Jack's stomach felt like it was filled with a million tiny knives, carving out his soul. He wished he could just go down there, hold her, make her remember who she was and what she meant to him.
As he thought about holding her, he remembered the feel of her body against his, telling him to make the most of the time they have. What if they didn't have any time left?
"Baal implanted her with a symbiote. Its name was Hadad. I guess the two snakes had a nasty history with each other." He explained.
"I don't think all of it was nasty," she looked at him then, apologetic. "She was genuinely distraught when she thought he was dead. We had to sedate her again."
"It's been two weeks and she's only woken up once. How long will she be sedated for?"
"We're trying to get her vitals back to where they need to be. She hasn't been sedated this whole time. She was also in a coma for about a week and a half. She just woke up yesterday, and has only been sedated since then." Janet rambled, which was unusual for her. Jack could feel the tension in the room and wondered what she wasn't telling him.
He turned to face her. "Janet, what aren't you telling me?"
Janet hesitated, but finally responded. "I don't know if she's going to come back from this. She wasn't in the sarcophagus long enough to do anything but repair enough damage to bring her back. And it looks like that's how she's survived the past six months. Barely. And even if she does wake up again, I don't know how she'll be psychologically."
Her body underneath his fingertips, her hipbones digging into his thighs. She cried out his name, a plea to stop, that he was supposed to be her savior, and he felt adrenaline like he'd never felt course through his veins.
Her kiss, cold, empty, unloving. His skin, bubbling, burned from the sun, cut by the grass beneath him. The pain of the hand device searing through his blood. The rush of reality when she was knocked away from him.
He watched the line on heart monitor rise and fall, like it was simply a boring game of Snake. He internally flinched at the pun.
It had only been three days, but he felt like it had been a lifetime. Janet released him, reluctantly, from the infirmary, with the orders he stay on base for at least another two weeks. SG-1 was on downtime, and Daniel and Teal'c were his constant sidekicks. He was ordered to start counseling with Mackenzie next week, and he was beginning to wonder if he even wanted to be back on Earth.
He knew he didn't mean it, but he felt out of place. No one took him seriously, and everyone seemed to question his orders. He was the second in command of this base, and if he was honest with himself, he should be the head of command.
Looking at Sam, pride ran through him. He did this. She was so beautiful, and it took all he had to not just run his hand under the blanket, and down her thighs….
"Colonel O'Neill! Step away from Major Carter immediately." He turned, and General Hammond stood shocked behind the mic and glass. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
He stood up from his chair and faced him. How dare he challenge him. He was in charge here, not Hammond.
"Taking what's mine," Jack ground out.
"I don't think so, Colonel." He saw Hammond gesture towards the guards, and the doors behind him opened.
"You think you can control me?" He laughed.
"Yes, Colonel, I very much think I can. Stand down, that's an order."
Jack rolled his head back in laughter, sticking his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels.
"You're delusional, sir, I've always been in control."
Hammond gestured towards the guards. They approached him, and Jack was able to knock a few of them back before one zatted him. He felt the electricity fizzle through him, and his last thought as he fell unconscious was that no one could truly kill a god.
Janet stood in front of General Hammond's desk, patiently waiting for him to hang up his phone. He had been updating the president on Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill's conditions, and things weren't going well.
Hammond sighed, and place the phone back in its dock. "Things aren't looking good. Kinsey wants Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter transferred to the NID. He thinks they deserved to be prosecuted, God knows what for."
Janet tried to protest, but he held up his hand. "The president doesn't agree with him, at least not yet. He's giving Kinsey time to build a case against them, but I don't think anything will come of it."
"Good, sir, I'm glad." Kinsey constantly tried to undermine them and shut down the SGC, but Janet knew that the president, and Hammond, would hold him at bay for as long as they could.
George sighed. It was hard whenever one of his teams came back broken, but he had long ago admitted to himself that he was closest to SG-1. The past six months had been hard for the SGC. Everyone had walked on eggshells around Jack, and he himself had gotten into an unnecessary argument or two with him.
"Doctor Fraiser, can you explain to me what the hell is happening? I know SG-1 has been under a lot of stress recently, and God knows what Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter went through while captured, but I've never seen either of them act this way."
Janet had spent a lot of time analyzing the blood tests of her two friends and patients. In her line of work, nothing was ever routine, and sometimes she had to make educated guesses. Over the course of the last two days, she had decided she was getting nowhere.
"I'm sorry, sir, but all of their bloodwork is normal. The only abnormality I could find in any of their tests were their EEGs. It seems that in both of them, there are two brain waves, but they're not entirely separate. I've never seen anything like it. I checked for symbiotes," Janet flinched, unsure of how to approach the next topic.
"Doctor?"
"Sir, it looks like a symbiote had recently died in Major Carter. But when I examined Colonel O'Neill, there was no sign of new symbiote implantation. As far as I can tell so far, there is no explanation for the two separate brain waves. I can't explain their behavior."