A/N: Fun fact this was one of the very last chapters I wrote.

Bring it all Back

Chapter 13

Armageddon

He wakes up facedown on the floor in the hallway leading to the Jacksons' lab. The lights are half on and half off, none stay on constantly, just flickering and when he tries to push himself up he finds resistance, then finds a pretty big piece of the ceiling holding down his back. With a groan he manages to rotate, and he punts the crumbling piece of ceiling off him.

What happened?

Doesn't remember what happened and when he stands his head swims for a bit, making his steps not all his own, not all solid planting on the ground, but he picks his way through the debris. There's a private caught underneath a mangle of concrete and piping, when he stoops to check for a pulse he doesn't find one.

The walls tremble, and he steps sideways a few feet, his hand bouncing him off the wall. He rights himself, and pivots back to the lab, to the Jacksons, who, if they're there, might have some insight as to what's going on. A piece of piping swings down from the ceiling, electrical cords dangling out like vines. He ducks around it and spins into the brief recess in the wall at the lab doors.

Double doors that won't budge and he rams his shoulder into them.

Then again followed with a deep cough lined with whatever dust has been waiting in the ceiling.

Then again until he feels like he might pass out.

Dizzying and light footed again.

Attacked.

They were attacked.

From who? By who? From where? Touches the bridge of his nose and finds it a bit swollen but prodding the rest of his face reveals no other injuries. What was he doing when it happened. The first hit happened without warning, then the alarm started screaming, lights went off and the backup generator kicked on. He was in the briefing room or conference room or whatever they're calling it this week.

Runs down the hall, feet still not all there, but he's got a gait going well. Turns into the stairwell, and makes it up a storey in a flash, then he's in the conference room looking at the rubble piled on the table, the blackboards and white boards and that screen they pull down whenever the Jacksons do one of their long PowerPoint presentations, are crushed on the ground.

He was telling Landry, about the threat of an Ori resurgence based off information that SG-1 tracked through the most outer rim planets, the ones that felt the grip of the Ori the strongest. Despite all things in Origin being dead: the ascended, Adria, the Doci, the Priors, people still hold the word of the book true. The Jacksons agreed that it took precedence over the Clava Thessara Infinitas, and Teal'c agreed to take a team to P3J-155 to speak with the people about a peaceful outcome. He and Vala were going to stay and research—

Vala.

A harsher, deeper quake rips through the building and more dust spills from the ceiling. Vala was going to the lab to grab the Book of Origin the Jacksons kept, and he was going to meet up with her, but then the attacks happened, are happening. The room shakes, and he slams the door shut, running down the stairs to the gate room, frantically trying to remember the code to the Bravo location. London, he thinks it's in London, but if they had a gate in London why did Daniel need to fly there a few years ago after he took command. Might be Egypt. Hopes it's not Antarctica.

Has to find her, find out if she's still here, so the gate room is first because he can scroll through the login codes to the DHD and see if she's left, but the room a mess, barely functioning with all the computers down. Black screens, a caved in ceiling, and a slightly angled gate. The DHD is fizzling, shooting a few sparks that bounce off the collapsed ceiling before dying out.

He can't dial out.

He knows her. He just has to think. She wouldn't leave without him, at least not voluntarily, would actually probably volunteer to stay behind in that self-sacrificing thing she does so often. Her room? His room? The cafeteria? Weapons lockup? That one wins out because it makes the most sense. It's further down in the mountain, so likely more stable and she would want to arm herself immediately.

Pivots to exit the room only to find three soldiers dressed in makeshift Ori armor aiming their staffs at him. He jumps behind the DHD box and listens to the electronics fry more. He's unarmed, just in Air Force fatigues, and the blasts are getting so close to him that they're burning his eyes. He closes them and ducks his head down until a gun rings out, not a energy blast, but a P-90. The sound of bullets ricocheting off metal armor twangs through the room until all exchange of fire stops.

Huffs in a breath, his body boxed in, trying to conceal himself behind the podium in case it's a trick, in case the thing with the gun is worse. Hears almost the feather touch of footsteps and his head shoots up from behind the device. "Vala?"

"Darling!" Drops the gun and runs to him. She has a bit of a limp and there's already a tear in her pants. Her arms are wide, and he swoops her up, her hitting him with such force that he tumbles back a bit. Her knees are at his hips and she almost climbs up him, angles his head up and crashes her lips into his, curls her body against his. "Oh Cameron, I thought—"

"I know." Kisses her in quick succession, while trying to stay upright and not topple over. His back starts to seize up from being blanketed by a ceiling chunk and his thigh throbs. But he keeps kissing her because she's alive, she's safe. "Oh God I thought—"

"I know." She pecks the tip of his nose and he lowers her to her feet. She leans her head in against his chest and he collects the strands of hair sticking to her face with sweat. "What happened?"

"I don't remember. One minute we were talking about the Ori, and the next I woke up under a blanket of ceiling. You?"

She tugs on his hand while she goes to retrieve her gun. She's favoring her left leg, but it doesn't seem to the be her ankle but her hip angles out. "I had the book of Origin in the Daniels' lab and the next thing I knew I was running away from Ori soldiers." Stoops with the right side of her body and swipes the P-90 off the ground without fully bending. "I managed to make it to the armory easily enough, but they shot the DHD while I was in there."

"You should've gone to Bravo site." Grabs the gun from her thigh holster and she doesn't even blink. "It's protocol."

"Yes, and I'm sure you awakening in the hallway outside of the Daniels' lab had nothing to do with it being my last location." Nods towards the doorway, and he takes the lead. Can hear her injury with every stuttered step.

Tosses a rock down the hallway and when nothing comes out to shoot it, he nods ahead. "I never told you I work up there."

"You didn't?"

"I don't think so."

"Lucky guess then."

They make a to-do list, a really hard one. First head to medical and grab supplies they might need with already sustained injuries, of if they get unlucky and take a staff blast.

"One blast is enough to kill." Tells him again as she peels a bandage and sticks it to the open cut on his cheek. He's watching the door, but more so watching the way her body sways in and out of his line of sight.

He holds his hands to her hips to steady her but comes down too hard on the left and she lets out a hiss while teetering sideways.

"Sorry princess." Grabs her arm before she loses her full footing and manages to steady her that way. She has her leg off the ground like an injured pony they once took in on the farm "I'm really sorry, I forgot."

Hands fly to his shoulders and she rolls her left foot in the air, her hips still slide unevenly. "About what?"

"About your hip."

She lets go of his shoulders just as quick, her eyes narrowing at him briefly, before twisting and limping to the side cabinet with the pain relievers and expertly picking the lock. "I never told you about my hip."

"No, but I can sort of see it in the way you walk." Pushes himself off the cold, metal table and grabs what looks like someone's lunchbox, zipping it open to take what they need.

She hums, wearing a bit of a smirk and leaning into him on purpose. "You watch my hips that often?"

"Baby, if I'm ever not watching your hips I'm probably dead."

There's no telling how many of them are in the building, and neither of them remember in exact details what happened. They put it aside, what was happening before, because it's not important how the Ori came to be here, but more important on how to get rid of them.

Follows her through the hall shadows, over sets of half stairs and railings she still topples over despite her injured hip, railings he follows her over despite his thigh and back. They sneak through the backdoor of the cafeteria and sit on the floor in the kitchen eating anything the get their hands on. They don't speak at all. It's only been a day, but it feels more like a year. It feels like a lifetime.

She falls asleep against his side from sheer exhaustion while still chewing food. They're both being real stupid about this. Need to secure a stronghold, a place where the Ori won't think to look for them. The dorm level is compromised, buried away between layers of rubble. People could be left down there, and the leader in him wants to look, to find a way through and save those who need it, but the other half of him, the more level-headed bastard during times of duress, knows it would lead to their death.

So instead he rests his head against hers while they sit propped against bulky metal kitchen cabinets in the bare minimum of light.

When he closes his eyes he immediately opens them, but it's sometime later, and they're not in the cafeteria anymore.

He's the first to start losing it, knew he would be because she's just so damn calm and enthusiastic in bad situations. Birthed a daughter who slaughtered millions, watched her die, and then ascend as what might be the ultimate evil, and he bets if Adria came back right now, Vala would still talk to her.

It's been three weeks, and they're always on the move, nomadic in a building they know down to the bottom corners of. Hole up in a third level janitor's closet. He collects supplies during the day, food, water, weapons, ammo, medical supplies for their worsening conditions, while she thumps around in the air ducts, trying to find a lead into level two and then the main level where they'll have access to outside.

She comes back dropping her bag on the floor. They don't have a bed, they don't have a cot, they have two sleeping bags and a flat hard concrete floor. Two days ago, he found them pillows and they almost cried from the comfort.

"I'm making progress, Cameron." She's covered in dirt, her hair browned with air duct dust and her teeth whiter from the contrast. "How did you fare?"

"Didn't princess," groans as he shifts his weight, his back flat against the wall and the closet is stuffy from three times recycled air. She stops rifling through her bag. "Had to stop. The pain was bad."

Hates to admit it to her, hates to admit it to anyone, but especially her, especially in this situation because the way she walks, how her hip clicks into place now with a more pronounced limp that he can feel like the teeth grinding in his mouth, he knows she aches too and he's too weak to compete. Didn't keep up his end of the bargain. He failed and he's upset as shit.

But she doesn't even toss any of those insinuations at him, just lowers herself beside him, hands scaling down the wall until she falls on angled knees, side-saddled on the floor. "Show me."

"Where it usually is."

Doesn't even look at her because he's sick of this, of what happened, of how he knows nothing of what's going on or where anyone else is. Sick of her having to knead her fingers into this thigh every night and every morning to provide him some sort of relief because the pain pills aren't doing it anymore.

"I'm almost to level two." Her side, her ribs lean across his legs, his shins, and she's slowly sinking to the ground, both her hands working over his muscle. "I think tomorrow I might breech—"

"I can't do this anymore, Vala."

"Can't do what?" She laughs, meant to play it off as misunderstanding, but it's nerves.

"Any of this shit." Stretches his arms almost touching the other side of their home. "You realize we've made our own prison." She won't look at him and he tries to level his voice because form the bits he can remember, he knows this isn't her fault. "We've made our own grave."

Her voice is small, soft, barely a whisper and not her own. "Cameron, it's okay to be frustrated—"

"Stop." Grabs her hands, directing them away from him. She reaches for his face and he snatches her hand in midair. "Stop."

Scales the wall, doing the reverse she did, using the palms of his hands as support while hiking himself up on a rickety, useless leg. Then brushes by her to the door.

"Don't please," Reaches for him as he hobbles to the door, cracking it to glance down the hallway for any Ori soldiers. She piles herself back up, hisses when her foot hits the ground too hard and limps behind him. "Cameron, please don't go, just talk with—"

He shuts the door on her.

Doesn't know how long he's away but he manages find an equipment room he hasn't been in before, one he doesn't remember, but that might be because it's just for uniforms. They both need a change of clothes, so he grabs a pack and shoves an extra pair of pants, a shirt, and a jacket in for each of them.

Trails soldiers at the end of the hallway by the cafeteria, and sneaks in the back door filling up two of the water bottles he's collected and grabbing what little food remains. The pack is starting to get full. Contemplates zipping by the medical bay, but he's starting to get worried for her, knows she's worried about him.

She's laying on their double stacked sleeping bag mattress facing the wall with her bad leg resting up on her bag. Knows she's not asleep, but moves quietly despite it. Didn't have supper for tonight, but at least they have breakfast for tomorrow.

Shuffles over to her, hands against the wall again as he lowers himself behind her. Slides to fit against her, and when his hands slide down her arm to her elbow she twitches to knock him off, but he won't let her.

"I'm sorry," kisses the words into her hair.

She doesn't flinch away but remains very tense under him. Expects her to give him shit about something, about leaving, about how he doesn't have to try so hard if he aches, about how he just needs to hold onto hope for a few more days until she can break to the surface. But she doesn't.

Instead she reaches back, her hand grabbing his, fingers entwining. "We're each other's most prized possession. We can't afford to be irate with each other."

"So how do I make it better?" Breathes it into her ear, lips tugging at the lobe until she spins back, jerking against the weight of her body on her hip. "We don't—"

But they really do. Really need to, because he thinks it's been a week and it's driving him insane. Close to her but too tired to touch her, too pained to try to start something, more pressing matters on hands, but he needs it and knows she does too

"Kiss me."

So he does.

Brash and unexpected while her tongue holds the words. Hand bundling in her clumped and tangled hair, the other burrowing beneath her shirt.

She kisses him back, and they both start to sit up, pull each other up because room is limited, light is limited, and they need to ride this feeling out while they still can. Tries to guide her back off her hip, but it sends a spiking ache through his thigh making him break the kiss. "You're going to have to be on top."

Tugs off his shirt and shoves him backwards with the palm of her hand against his shoulder. "What else is new?"

A week later she cracks into level two but finds nothing but piles of debris. Almost all the air ducts are blocked and there is only one light that continues to work. But she doesn't lose hope, even when he knows it's a lost cause she smiles and tells him the ways she can work around it and oddly enough, her attitude is actually starting to restore his. Her belief becomes his belief and instead of shooting down her suggestions he supports them.

They have a run of good luck,when he finally cracks into the pantry and the still working freezer in the kitchen after two days of picking at scraps. She bounces on her feet when he shows her, and they collect a bag's worth of groceries in his pack.

On the way back to their closet, which has more pillows and a third sleeping bad he found in an abandoned pack, he tosses her an orange in the flickering lights and she plucks it from the air, her glee palpable, will be palpable once they get back and comfortable.

But the soldiers come out of nowhere and she doesn't see them. But he does, and he hooks an arm around her waist and yanks her down an adjacent hallway, one they don't get very far down because large chunks of concrete block them from little more than using it for cover.

"I thought they were gone?" Tries to peek around the corner with him, but a staff blast hits close to them and the light is enough to make them recoil.

"Well they're back."

After almost getting shot down, he took out four out of five soldiers and she took the fifth with the lucky last bullet, he refuses to separate from her because he feels the weight of her words hit him like it was a staff blast. They only have each other. They alternate days, one for digging up, and other for supply and stock. Using this routine it takes her three months to break into the main level.

They clamor through the rocks, bruises and cuts gnawing into their hands and knees. She gets up first and has a head run and he's so afraid that something is going to take her out, that a soldier lays in wait for someone to work the door, but then he's there behind her in a flash, just standing in the outside air which is not as he imagined it would be.

The sky is red and hazy with a thick layer of black smoke collecting and blotting out the sun. Highrises from downtown stand aflame and everything smells like sulfur. A few flakes of ash pepper down from the sky and stick to her hair, and he watches the look of hope she's held for so long and nursed and never given up on, die on her face.

He stands guard at the locker room door while she showers, and he pretends that he doesn't hear her sob as she washes the remnants of a world she was barely allowed to interact with from her hair and off her body.

It's his turn now, and he sits with his back against the wall, her left leg in his lap as he rotates it, stretching the muscles, pressing the bottom of her foot and bending her knee to give her more mobility back. She lays on their four sleeping bag mattress makeshift bed, again facing the wall with her hands tucked underneath her head and not saying a damn word.

Lifts her leg up, knee bent to work her hip, but she resists it, and her leg becomes heavy until falls back into his lap. "Vala?"

"What's the point?"

Rubs her thigh, plucks over the wrinkles growing in the fabric, in the pants that are getting far to big for her because there's not enough food anymore. They have little to no fruit left, just a few cans of veggies, and protein in the form of peas and beans. When he sat down and did the math, they probably have to the end of the week for food. Maybe the end of next week if they don't eat every other day.

"I was going to save this for when you were feeling better, but I have a plan."

"Your plans are awful."

"They're not always awful."

"Just shoot me now and put me out of my—"

"Okay, lighten up." It's half command, half laugh because she's so moody, and he's seen her moods before, most of them, never her insane with rage or devastatingly depressed, but this is her dramatic sadness.

"Just tell me about the death plan."

"It's not a death plan."

It's a death plan.

Basically, a death ultimatum.

Fix the DHD box and get the hell out of Dodge or die trying. The soldiers like to stay around the gate room, maybe they've got some sort of portable DHD that fires it up because they are damn near never ending.

Agree to spend two days gathering supplies, mostly weapons and ammo because most of theirs is spent. The armory, where all the P-90s and zats are, is on the lower level and even if they had another three months she couldn't burrow down close enough. Instead they have the auxiliary weapon's lockup where weapons go after being returned from missions, which leaves them with one zat and one sidearm. They have a little leftover ammo from her P-90, but not enough to really help that much.

"Man, I wish things were different." He yanks up his pants keeping his weight off his bad thigh, then grabs her bra from where it landed over their pack.

"Well if wishes were hand grenades." She trails off, fastening her bra and letting her hair fall back over her shoulders.

Doesn't even try to correct her because if something goes south, and it probably will, he doesn't want one of his last memories after their 'we're probably going to die' wild sex, to explaining to her mixed up idioms she half understands.

They're in the gate room in a blink and he spins once taking in the room, trying to remember the hallways they used to get here, and he can't. "Vala do you know how we—"

"No, I don't." She doesn't seem to care about them practically teleporting here, and kneels beside the box, that after four months is no longer spitting sparks, pulling the side off to look at the damage. Crystals and wires are everywhere, and he has no idea how she understands half of it.

Half is exactly what she gets to before the soldiers, five of them again, flood through the doorway with their staffs drawnS. he yanks him down behind the box with her. His head tucked against her shoulder as they sort of coil around each other for protection. They shoot back but it only draws more fire, and the heat from the energy blasts on his face is familiar again, like being in a dentist's chair under the light.

The P-90 runs out, and the soldiers blast the zat clear from his hand. He falls back down, legs bent underneath him pushing her as far back as she can get, his head bouncing with her heaving breathes.

"We're both not going to make it out of here."

Stares up into her eyes, her hair hanging down into his face, white energy blasts going off behind her in slow-motion.

"I know."

Thinks it will become a race of who can sacrifice themselves for the other first, but she slips her hand in his and starts to stand. They're each other's only everything. She can't go on without him just like he can't without her. They've lived on top of each other in a jail cell sized closet for four months and even if he made it out of here alive, he wouldn't continue living, even if that meant giving up what she sacrificed for him.

He kisses her one last time, hands holding her cheeks, pulling her to him—with him—into the line of fire.

Awakens in a bed, a stiff bed, not four sleeping bags concrete floor stiff, but a bed that's not really meant to be a bed. Tosses his hand to the side as he tries to sit upright but finds a bit of restraint. His eyes open to bright lights and white and reflecting metal. There's air conditioning going, and a steady beeping at his side and shit he's in the medical bay.

"Before you even ask anything—"

"You're fine, Vala's fine—well, aside from getting drugged by the friendly Shamans on P3R-068."

Jackson.

Two Jacksons sit at his bedside, both with a giant book in their laps, both not even bothering to look up at him.

"What?"

"That'll teach you not to indulge in native cultural customs." Daniel One flips the page and sets in an 'archaeologists rock' bookmark.

Daniel Two follows suit with the same bookmark and he knows she bought it for both of them. She's probably the only one who addresses them separately most of the time, and who makes two copies of things for them. "We told you we should've gone instead."

"How about instead of gloating you tell me what the hell happened?" Manages to shimmy up in the bed and is surprised to find the pain in his thigh gone.

"You want to long version?"

"Or the short?"

"How about the short of the short."

Daniel One stands with his book. "Basically, you drank spiked moonshine from a cultural ceremony you had no right in attending."

Blinks and keeps his eyes shut remembering the large bonfire, the smell of freshly caught fish cooking on spits, and drinking something that tasted like fermented Kool-Aid. "Short."

"You and Vala shared a hallucinogenic dream." Daniel Two reaches for the door, holding it for himself.

"A dream. That—that was all a dream?"

"Yep." Daniel One disappears with a smirk.

"And since it was Vala's dream, I cannot even imagine what you've been through." A shudder crawls up Daniel Two's back. "I'll—uh—I'll send in Dr. Lam."

"We lived in a janitor's closet for four months."

"Don't remind me."

They're sitting on his couch watching CNN updates because it's what she picked. She usually hates Earth news and refuses to watch it whenever he puts it on, especially any news with a ticker tape that moves too fast for her to absorb all the information.

His hand strokes through her hair, her head in his lap as her eyes narrow at the yellow, streaming words at the bottom of the screen. Her fingers splay against where she knows the scar in his thigh rests, her breath hot through his sweats. "How is your poor thigh?"

"Only hurts a bit, but the pills Lam gave are working a lot better than hallucinogenic dream pills." Grins down at her, fanning out her hair over his lap. "How's your hip?"

She grins back up at him as his hand traces over the dips in her body to stop on her hip and knead a bit. "It's absolutely fine. I wonder why I hurt it. I don't even remember how it happened."

"I'm starting to forget things about it too." The layout of their homey closet, where they found food, what the pain pills looked like. "But it still feels like it all happened."

"It did happen, darling." Plays with his fingers in feather light touches and sharp drags of her fingernails. "It just didn't happen in reality."

When she turns back to look at the tv and the news anchor is still rambling all the highlights of that day, she scoffs and turns away again. He clicks off the tv and rubs the tight area between her shoulders, his knees bouncing until she sits up. "At least we learned one thing."

"Never accept mysterious drinks from tribal elders, even if it looks like a lovely cup of fruit punch?"

"Well there's that," groans as he attempts to stand, and she tugs him by the hands until he's on his feet.

"And?" Arches an eyebrow back at him as a she hits the switch on the wall and tugs the curtains closed.

"And that we can live together for four months without killing each other which gives us a lot of potential, I think." Taps her on the ass when she scoots by him, but then follows her down the hallway and into the bedroom.

She scoffs, rolling her eyes as she bends to retrieve pajamas from the bottom drawer of his dresser. "Don't act like you wouldn't love to live with me." Returns with a tank top and the pair of panties that got caught in the lint trap of his dryer last week. "To capture me in your web of domesticity."

"Oh yeah, princess." Drops his shirt to the ground and flicks on the light in the bathroom, reaching into the mirror cabinet to grab his toothbrush. When he closes the door, he watches the reflection of her changing behind him a few feet from the door. "That's my end game."

"You need a new game." Bundles her hair and pulls it though her tank top. Straightens the straps and starts collecting the laundry he's trailed everywhere.

He pulls off his sweats, kicking them at her and she squeals when they hit her in the face. But when he laughs, she rolls her eyes and tries to hide her grin.

This is his end game.