See chapter one for disclaimers.
My Andromeda
Chapter Nine
by Mabyn
"Mathers, head of Internal Security and Defense Appropriations," Jack muttered to Daniel and Mitchell as they climbed the stairs to the briefing room. "It's a new bunch of morons to keep in line for Homeworld Security."
Daniel leaned against one of the leather chairs before sitting. "If he's part of Homeworld Security, isn't he under your command? I mean, you are in charge of that branch of defense." When Jack grunted, his eyes rolling subtly, Daniel paused. "Aren't you?"
Jack sighed and sunk into the worn leather, his hands massaging his face. "Yeah. But there's a bunch of power mongering, maniacal jackasses in Washington who'd like to see that change." He leaned back in his chair and resisted the urge to put his feet up on the table. "I'd rather face a gaggle of Gould or Ori or even those damn bugs instead of politicians and idiot generals."
Mitchell nodded. "You can't shoot politicians or generals."
Jack smiled acerbically. "Exactly. Thank you."
"So," Daniel drawled as General Landry took his place at the briefing table. "He's here to see Sam."
Landry nodded and settled himself into his chair. "Specifically to see her, yes."
"There's a surprise," Jack muttered. A bright light flashed across his mind and he could see the spires of a golden fortress gleaming in the distance. Sam stepped into view, the fabric of her dress flowing vibrant silver under the tired sun, her hair billowing in a light breeze. ...urbs malaum...city of evil, he heard her whisper. Morbeum astram...the sickness of the stars. He was standing next to her, his feet planted on a floor of liquid glass that rippled without breaking.
When he looked up at the city again, his mouth gaped. The gold had tarnished, the walls had crumbled and the brilliant spires had cracked under the red glare of the sun, now dying. The city screamed and in that scream he heard the wail of a million souls as they were wrenched from existence. The stench of a slaughterhouse assaulted him and the glass beneath his feet ran thick with blood.
"Jack?"
A hand on his arm jarred him back to the briefing room. His eyes widened as Daniel's face wavered in front of him. Pressing his fingertips into his eyes, he said, "Yeah, sorry," and rolled his shoulders in an effort to clear his head. But the image of Sam walking a glass lake of blood stood firm in his memory.
"With all due respect, sir," Mitchell was saying, "Do we really have to worry about them? We are talking about the woman who's currently taking down the Ori. After she kicks their asses, a couple a' feds aren't even going to phase her."
"But she was different on Temporasa," Daniel pointed out. "She was more in control of her abilities. Here," he trailed of for a moment as the image of her babbling incoherently, terrified and cowering in the infirmary flooded back to him. "Here, she was--a mess."
"There's more raw power there," Jack told him, unsure of how he knew, but confident in his estimation. "And it's calmer, fewer distractions." His eyes blurred slightly and his mind whirred, as if he were sorting through an infinite data bank for one specific phrase. "The closer she is to Aedes Luma or the Flames of Enlightenment," he said softly, "the more power and control she has."
Silence eased gently into the briefing room, but Jack was unaware of it. Sam was speaking to Kierken, her voice hushed. S's hissed and t's whispered and her footsteps fell like autumn leaves, inching ever closer to the gold and gleaming city.
The tarnished and decaying city.
"How do you know?" Daniel was asking him and before he could think to respond, he was saying,
"I know."
Vaguely he heard Landry's voice, followed by the lulling cadence of Captain Caise.
"I see her," he said softly, almost breathing the words instead of speaking them.
Daniel was shifting in his seat, the fabric of his pants grating against the leather―the dead skin, the decaying skin―and Jack looked to him. "She's almost there."
The City of Celestis towered in front of her and she trembled at the disquiet of the Doci inside. He felt her, he was in her mind as she was in his, though his efforts to garner information were clumsy, foolish. He fumbled his way around the perimeter of her defenses, leaving fingerprints in his wake, disturbing the settled dust around the edges.
His footprints filled with her sorrow.
"They know we're coming," Kierken said.
Sam nodded. "Yes."
A morose chuckle writhed from his throat. "I was hoping to surprise them."
Pausing, she gazed up at the glowing wall before them, its pinnacle buried in the sky, and she said, "When you know eternity, there are very few surprises." Her voice was hollow and resigned; if she had still retained the capacity, she would have been frightened.
But then, she knew eternity. And there were no surprises.
She held her hand out to her companion; he gently interlaced his fingers with hers, his weathered skin softening under her touch. After a shared glance, divine in its implications, they entered the City.
"Almost where?"
"The City."
Voices melded together until they became one sonorous tone, beckoning him away from the precipice of her mind―that place, transcendental, beatific, unparalleled in dominion―his confidence, his bliss. He shut them out and focused the bright light of his energy on that mind―funneling, churning, channeling―reducing himself to nothing so that she may become everything.
That mind.
Perfect. Holy. Unbegotten.
I am here, he assured her.
I have never doubted, she said and reached her hand towards him. They touched and the darkness seared his eyelids, but her eyes were crystal doors, wholly open, begging him through the threshold.
Come, she whispered through the encroaching darkness. Follow me.
I am here, he repeated. And I will follow.
"JACK!" Daniel sprung from his seat as his friend's body slumped to the ground, the man's eyes pouring open and depleting his pupils. Captain Caise breezed to the general's side, her fingers flying to Jack's pulse as she demanded someone call a med team.
But Mitchell's hand was already cradling the phone. "Med team to the briefing room stat!" he all but shouted into the receiver and slammed the phone down without waiting for a response.
Behind him, Jack groaned, his eyes still wrenched open, his pupils unnaturally dilated. "No..." he breathed, his chest heaving, air grating into his lungs.
Daniel stared into his friend's eyes and swore he saw oceans frothed pink and a flash of Sam's face consumed by flame. "Jack?" he whispered and gently shook the man's shoulder. "Jack, answer me."
And then Jack's fingers were entrenched in Daniel's shirt and Daniel was pulled roughly downwards until Jack's breath stung his cheek. His friend's eyes were oceans, oceans teeming with life if life equated emotion, and Daniel struggled against the current, his mind flailing, desperate to stay afloat.
"No drugs," Jack breathed, and Daniel started at his desperation. "They give me drugs," Jack continued, his voice strained and distant, "Sam dies." Flames exploded behind Jack's eyes and the undertow swirled at Daniel's feet. "I won't let them kill her."
"I promise," Daniel assured him, his hand warm on Jack's neck.
Jack's eyes rolled white as he stumbled back into Daniel's gaze. "Good," he muttered, before succumbing to the darkness again.
The City's floors washed cold under her feet and immediately began to prey upon the life-blood of millions flowing inside of her, circling it like vultures. The very structure of this City fed upon the souls harvested by the Ori; they fortified it, allowed its integrity. Sam's jaw flexed in the dim light as she erected barriers around her essence. The City growled and pitched beneath her, jabbing furiously at her defenses and, finding no weakness, screaming at her strength of will.
"You have angered the Ori." The Doci filtered through the candlelight, his gray robes cast dull orange as his eyes flashed red. Turning to Doctor Kierken, his face twisted and he said, "You have betrayed us."
"Your first born betrayed you long ago," Sam told him, resisting the sorrow the rose in her throat. "Before his rebirth, he knew of our coming. He did nothing to stop it."
His lips fluttering to smile, the Doci stepped closer, the floor shrinking beneath him. "There is nothing to stop," he said, now only several meters from Sam and Doctor Kierken. He reeked of decaying flesh, but Sam did not flinch. "You feed on lies where truth once flourished," he continued. "Your lies will see your own destruction."
"And your arrogance will see yours."
A resonant chuckle wound out of the Doci's throat. "Our sister was weak, her company shameful. The old woman, the mother, the maiden―fools, turned to stone by their own hands."
Sam sensed the power of the Ori feeding him, and then she could see it―a fine red thread, floating mid-air, wending from the Chamber and looping around Doci. She glanced from the thread to the Ori housed in the Doci. "You have seen eternity," Sam returned, the Colax flooding her with assurance, with power. "And it does not belong to you."
Flames licked the Doci's pupils and the ground trembled as the doors leading to the Flames of Enlightenment blew open. Heat washed over her, and she did not flinch, but stared deep into the core of the Ori's anger. "Eternity," the Ori told her, "belongs to those powerful enough to stop it."
"He's regaining consciousness," Captain Caise said, her hands resting on Jack's shoulders. "General O'Neill?" she asked. "General, can you hear me?"
Jack groaned and his eyes flicked back and forth before clamping shut. "She's there," he muttered, wiping a hand across his face. "She's there," and he saw her clearly, her silver robes, her fingers tightly wound around the Colax. Doctor Kierken to her left, the Doci ahead of her, speaking. But she was looking past the Doci to the flames living in the chamber behind him. Her gaze like water, streams, oceans, but the fire would not be extinguished and roiled under her scrutiny like steam.
"Sam," he whispered, but was unaware of it.
"Jack," Daniel called, shaking him.
And she was striding past the Doci, his shoulders proud, his hands wanting to stop her but unable. But she stopped of her own accord.
And her finger was riding a thin red strand. The Doci was stopping, stopping, his eyes pulled wide, his mouth gaping.
The thread shifted blue under her skin―an inch of blue sputtering yellow where it intersected red.
"No..." was spinning from his lips, contorted, and he was staring at her, aghast, disbelieving
and She was closing Her hands around the strand
and the Doci was screaming
and Dr. Kierken was glowing
and the thread was crumbling in Her hands
and blue dust was falling from Her fingers like rain
and She was smiling
but he could taste her sadness
as She turned away--
as She was crossing the threshold of the Ori's chamber--
as She was coming closer to the brink of her--
and he felt the Colax searing into Her chest.
He heard a voice he did not know say, Now is the time, my sister.
and She turned away.
she turned away.
He could not follow; his limbs lay lifeless; his heart slowed.
but Her name rushed from his lips in one gust.
I love you, she told him.
And--
--
The Stone weighted her palms.
--
"We need to get him to the infirmary."
--
The fiber thong snapped against her nape.
--
"Where's the med team?"
--
She knew eternity.
--
"No drugs."
--
Elaine wept.
--
"General, can you hear me?"
--
Nimue whispered.
--
"Jack!"
--
Morfaye sang.
--
"She's dying," he gasped.
--
"You, who would be destroyers," Sam breathed, "must now be destroyed." And she stepped into the mouth of the Flames.
--
"NO!" Jack cried and hurled himself away from the hands of the medics.
The Colax split into three halves in Sam's hand and pure white light poured from the fissures and married the flames. Sam hung in the center of the Chamber, her arms uplifted; she opened her mouth and Morfaye's clear, piercing tones breezed from her throat, embracing the Flames of the Ori and drawing them towards her. The Flames struggled against each other, battling for space, madly pressing against the force of Morfaye's song. They screamed when the music pushed them backwards, corralling them towards the lifeblood living now―right now--in their center.
She was poison. That lifeblood was poison. And they thought―wait.
She was whispering, Quisnam exsitiam pessa ire pereaum.
Quisnam exsitiam pessa ire pereaum.
You, who would be destroyers, must now be destroyed.
Quisnam exsitiam pessa ire pereaum. They stopped struggling and listened as the Lifeblood (not poison, not anymore) whispered the words over and over, her voice flowing around them, warming them, drawing them closer and closer and (oh!) closer to her chest, her skin (soft), her eyes (glass), her hands (gentle) that would cradle, soothe and ease.
They had felt nothing for millennia.
And they thought they should not go so easily as this―they that had molded worlds and races; they who were revered, worshiped, feared; they who brought plague as easily as rain; they who would be Gods.
But they had felt nothing for millennia. And her skin was so soft, her hair smelled like summertime―they could remember summertime―her eyes looked like pure blue winter skies, the sun dazzling off of the snow.
They fit in the palm of her hand and they molded themselves to her skin's crevasses. She nuzzled them gently and they sighed. Millennia―such an awfully long time...
Tears welled in her eyes.
-Brother, Elaine called.
Lasot saw her approaching and ducked his head; his calves withered and he fell to his knees.-
Tears crossed her bottom lashes.
-Elaine stood before him. Brother, she whispered.
I am not worthy to be called your brother, Lasot told her.-
Tears slipped down her cheeks.
-But you are my brother, Elaine said. And I love you.
He looked up at her, hesitant to meet her eyes. Still?-
Tears rounded the curve of her jaw.
-Elaine smiled. Always.-
And her tears extinguished the small ball of flame the Ori had become.
He willed her to breathe. Dammit, Sam, he shouted. Get the hell up!
She wasn't listening. She couldn't hear him. She wasn't breathing.
He had seen her destroy the Ori―such a harsh word for their gradual, gentle lessening. He had seen her eyes roll back in her head, her limbs fall limp and her body sink lifelessly to the floor. He had seen her chest still.
He had heard her heart stop beating.
He had felt a part of himself die.
But she was in his galaxy, he knew.
She had yet to die.
Her ring glowed and he remembered. Time and space meant nothing.
If you find any errors, pleasepleaseplease bring them to my attention. (Still working without a beta.) Thanks. :)