ACT 2
"Come on, Rodney. There's got to be a way to narrow this down. Do some of that voodoo you do…." Sheppard tried not to sound exasperated, but after six trips through the gate inside of three hours his level of frustration was rising. And it didn't help to look up each time they came back and see O'Neill's eyes dark with disappointment staring down at them from Carter's office.
"Trust me…if there was any way I could eliminate even a tenth of the planets from our list, I would have already done it." Sheppard saw him glance up at the general and then quickly away. "He's going to have me shot, isn't he?"
"If I said yes, would that spark any kind of creative solution to our dilemma?"
McKay contemplated this for a couple of seconds, shrugged and said:
"Probably not."
"Okay. Then yes. He's going to have you shot. Right after he shoots me."
"I do not think General O'Neill holds you personally responsible for what happened to Colonel Carter," remarked Teyla consolingly. Sheppard looked again at the man standing in Carter's office. She was probably right, but at the moment, that didn't matter. Whether the general held him responsible or not, he felt responsible. It had been his mission.
"Yeah…I wouldn't count on that," he mumbled, trudging over to the stairway leading up to the control room. Obviously the other teams out there hadn't come up with anything yet either. Time to get their next assignment, freshen up and move out.
"How long are we going to keep doing this?" Ronan's voice rumbled quietly as he took the steps in stride with Sheppard. John looked at him out of the corner of his eye.
"Whaddaya mean?"
"I mean, how long are we going to keep every team we have out there looking? Look, I'm no expert on wormholes or anything, but I think no one has said out loud what everybody's thinking," continued Ronan. Sheppard stopped halfway up the steps and turned to him.
"And what exactly is that?" he asked, challengingly. Normally he didn't go head to head with Ronan, but the big guy had something on his mind and Sheppard wanted to hear it.
The Satedan looked over his head to where John knew he could see O'Neill and then back down at Sheppard.
"That she's dead," he said bluntly. As bluntly as Sheppard had expected. Even so, it felt like he'd swallowed a stone. He turned away and started to climb again. Ronan fell in step beside him.
"She's not dead," he replied, willing himself to sound convinced of that. "McKay said the energy…"
"I know what McKay said," interrupted Ronan. "But it's wishful thinking. The wormhole collapsed. She was inside. She's dead. You know it and I know it."
Sheppard stopped again and pulled Ronan over to the side. The bigger man looked surprised at being manhandled but John didn't care. He glanced again at O'Neill to make sure he wasn't within earshot, and after checking that no one else was either, he gave Ronan the sternest look he could manage.
"No…I don't know it. And until someone can prove to me that she is, we keep looking. We don't leave our people behind. You of all people should know that."
While Sheppard wouldn't exactly describe Ronan's look as chastised, at least he didn't answer back. Sheppard hung onto his stare another moment for emphasis and returned to his advance on the control room.
He didn't need that kind of talk or that kind of attitude. And he especially didn't need it because he was fighting hard to keep it at bay himself. A part of his brain was whispering that Ronan was right, that this was just a gargantuan waste of time and manpower. There was no evidence, even if the gate did jump, that Colonel Carter had made it to another planet in one piece. And the likelihood that she had been killed either just as she entered the wormhole or while in transit seemed greater with each passing failure.
To be honest, he could not see themselves traveling to every planet on McKay's list. Even General O'Neill would have to concede that it was beyond the scope of reasonable to do that. There were bigger fish frying in the Pegasus Galaxy these days, and they would have to return to the issue of the Replicators sooner rather than later. Not to mention the Wraith. The lull they were in at the moment was temporary at best.
Still, it wasn't his call, and for that he was grateful. The last thing he wanted to do was to face General O'Neill and tell him that they had given up on trying to find Colonel Carter. For that he was more than happy to turn the responsibility over to Landry.
But he didn't see that happening yet. And as tedious as it was, he was determined to keep looking for as long as possible.
Making a point of not glancing at the general, he headed off for a stout cup of coffee, a quick shower and a major dose of optimism before they dialed up the seventh planet on their list.
o-o-o-o
"Dog tag?" The one called Zetra looked at the item in her hand with a puzzled look. "I have never heard of such a thing. But you remembered it?"
Carter nodded.
"I don't know how, I just…it just came to me. Can I have it back…please?" she tried not to let the desperation she felt seep into her voice, but a part of her was screaming to grab it out of the other woman's hand. Fortunately, Zetra nodded and let it slither into Carter's hand from her own. Relief spread over her as she felt the cool metal and she quickly slipped it over her head and felt the familiar weight of it against her chest. Some of her disquiet ceased. It almost made her feel at home. Wherever that was.
"Thanks," she offered Zetra a genuine smile. The woman's return smile was guarded and Carter couldn't help but notice that she regarded her with a most peculiar expression. The other woman…Malana…kept her distance and said nothing.
"How are you feeling?" Zetra leaned in toward her now and examined the bruise on her head. Carter winced at her touch, even though it was gentle.
"Better. At least my headache is gone."
"And your arm?" She sat back and assessed the now hardened bandage that protected her broken arm. It throbbed a little, but not nearly as badly as before.
"It feels okay."
Zetra nodded approvingly.
"The bandage has set. It should heal properly now. You have injured that arm before, I think."
Carter shrugged.
"Maybe…I don't know."
"There was a weakness to it. This time it will mend stronger."
Carter nodded. She certainly couldn't complain about how they had cared for her. She only wished she knew more about how she had come to be here.
"Could you…please, tell me again how you found me? Where was I?"
Zetra and Malana exchanged glances. Malana's mouth drew itself into a thin line before she answered.
"You were in the temple ruins. At the foot of one of the standing stones, not far from the great ring. It was I who discovered you. Along with Arisha. At first we thought you were dead. There was a great deal of blood."
"It was fortunate that Malian had gone to find some tendra root that day," interjected Zetra, her voice a little softer than Malana's harsh tone. "It only grows in the ruins of the old temple. Otherwise she would not have found you, and it is unlikely any others would have. Very few people ever venture to the Temple of the Altera any more."
Carter closed her eyes, trying to remember. She could remember loud noises. Shouting. Pain shunting through her entire body. But they were all disconnected, and she wasn't sure if they were all tied together in sequence or just bits and pieces of her life trying to surface.
She opened her eyes and found Zetra staring at her intently.
"Any memory of how you came to be there?" she asked quietly. Carter shook her head.
"Not really. Just…I don't know. Flashes. It may have nothing to do at all with what happened to me."
Zetra nodded.
"Very well. We will let it be for now."
The women made to leave, but Carter reached out her hand and touched Zetra's arm. The woman froze, and Carter sensed that it took every effort the other woman had not to pull her arm away in revulsion.
"Thank you for taking care of me. Whatever I can do to repay you…."
"Think nothing of if," Zetra replied, easing herself up and away from Carter's hand. "It is our purpose to heal the sick and care for those who are injured. It is what we have been put on this world by the Altera to do. Even for strangers." At this Carter noticed that Zetra glanced at Malana with what might have been an admonishing look. Malana scowled slightly before turning on her heels and leaving the tent.
"Have I done something to offend her?" Carter asked, tentatively. That Malana did not like her was obvious. She just wondered why.
"Done anything? No," Zetra replied, with a sigh. "Rest a while. When you feel up to it, send Arisha to get me and we will take you walking in a little bit."
And with that, she followed Malana out of the tent.
Alone again, except for Arisha, who was more shadow than person, Carter lay back down and stared at the ceiling. Her hand went instinctively to the tags around her neck and she grasped them tightly, as if somehow they might open her mind and let the memories come flooding back through.
Carter… Sir?It was just a snippet. But she remembered. She remembered…what? A voice. A name. Her name. Carter. Just like it said on the dogtag. But something about it wasn't quite right. She just couldn't put her finger on it.
Yeah. Like she couldn't put her finger on a lot of things, right at the moment.
She held the dogtag up and studied the writing on it again.
Carter, Samantha, Col., USAFCarter. Samantha. Sam.
Sam.
That was…familiar. That was her name. Sam. Carter was…well, it was her name too, but not her given name.
"I am Sam," she murmured aloud. And then for no apparent reason felt compelled to say "Sam I am." Why she grinned at that, she wasn't sure, but for some reason it made her giggle.
It got Arisha's attention.
"Are you all right?" the girl asked, coming near her, but not too near.
Sam couldn't help smiling with excitement.
"I think…I think I remember my name. It's Sam. Short for Samantha. This second name, here," she pointed at the dog tag. Arisha's eyes glanced down but she did not come close enough to read it.
"This is good," Arisha responded, shyly. Sam nodded.
"Yes! It is. Now maybe the rest of it will start to come back," she replied. Arisha turned away, but Sam called after her.
"Why…why does Malana dislike me? And why are you and Zetra afraid of me?"
Arisha shook her head and backed away.
"I cannot say. It is not my place. I am only a learner."
Sam cocked her head.
"What do you learn?"
"The ways of the Sisterhood. How to care for the sick and tend to the dying. Which plants to gather for medicines and how to mix the medicines together for different illnesses. How to treat wounds and mend bones. It is what the Altera asks of us."
"The Altera?" asked Sam. Zetra had spoken the same name.
"You do not know the Altera?" whispered Arisha in awe. Sam shook her head and tapped the side of it.
"I don't know much, don't forget," she said ruefully. Arisha nodded, understanding.
"The Altera are those who came before. They were our guardians, our teachers and our benefactors. They built the first temple long, long ago. Longer even than our memory. And it is to honor them that we serve."
"By caring for strangers," added Sam, trying to clarify.
"By caring for everyone. People come from all over to seek our aid. The sisterhood is scattered far and wide, tending to those in need. There are many encampments such as ours across the land."
"Zetra said you will move the encampment," Sam remembered.
Arisha nodded.
"We will remain here another few weeks and then move to our cold weather location. We come here in the warmer days to gather the plants we need for our medicines. But when the snow comes, it is better that we are closer to the cities. It will be my first relocation," she added, timidly. Sam could see there was both pride and excitement in her admission.
"Wow. That will be very exciting for you, I'm sure," she remarked. The girl beamed and raised her eyes to meet Sam's, but then suddenly flinched and looked away.
"I s-should speak no further. You must rest," she stammered.
Sam sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the cot.
"Actually, I'm feeling a lot better. I think I could even walk a little, with some help. It might do me some good."
The girl scurried away.
"Then I will call for Zetra."
Sam still couldn't figure out what she had done.
"I'm sure it would be okay for you to help me," she started, but the way the girl reacted Sam thought it was as if she had suggested she take poison. The youngster backed away.
"No—I mustn't. It is…you are…I will call for Zetra."
And with that she backed out of the tent, leaving Sam alone.
o-o-o-o
They had assigned him the same living quarters he'd had the last two times he'd come to Atlantis in spite of the fact that he had every right and reason to move his gear into Sam's. Still, he hadn't complained. It was in keeping with what she would have preferred, and with what they had agreed to when this whole crappy assignment had come up.
The accommodations hardly mattered anyway. He had barely spent any time in them over the past four days and he was only here now because that pesky young doctor…what was her name?…had insisted. Threatened to make it an order, even—though by the look on her face he could tell it was the first time she'd ever tried that tactic with a three star general. He was sure if he'd put up the least bit of a fight she'd have backed off in an instant. But he had complied, if for no other reason than it gave him a chance to get out of that damn office and away from the prying eyes of everyone who walked into the control room or through the gate.
And he was damned well getting tired of watching that gate. Even more of watching team after team return through the gate only to glance up at him and shake their heads. By his count they'd covered 53 planets so far, and not a single sign of Sam on any of them. One team had gone out of commission when their CO had taken a misstep through the gate and broken his leg, leaving, in effect, only three teams out there searching for her. He'd considered taking over one of the teams himself, but thought better of it. He had no business being out there, and he at least had the good sense to know it. Even if it killed him to admit it.
At the sink he threw some cold water on his face and avoided looking in the mirror as he dried himself off with a towel. That felt a little better, but not much. He supposed he should try to sleep. Yeah. Right. Like that was going to happen. The thoughts he didn't want to think were buzzing in the back of his head like a persistent fly, and he knew if he tried to lay down, tried to rest, that buzzing would become too loud and he'd have to listen to it. And he really, really wasn't ready to listen to those thoughts just yet. He needed more time. Sam needed more time.
His duffle sat squatting on a chair right where the noncom who'd brought it from the gate had left it. Someone had packed for him and sent it through long after he'd taken the intergalactic bridge to Atlantis. He'd rummaged in it for a toothbrush and a razor, but not much else. None of it, he realized, was his stuff, for which he was glad. It was just standard AF-issue, probably right from the SGC. He couldn't stand to think that someone had been to his house—their house—and gone through his things in order to pack him up an off-world kit. Military-issue was fine. It was work. It wasn't personal.
Not like the search.
He was trying like hell to keep his emotions out of it, to be the head of Homeworld Security trying to figure out what happened to the CO of the Atlantis expedition, and for the most part he thought he'd done okay. He hadn't tried to murder McKay when he'd revised his number of possible planets from eighty or ninety to a hundred and ten. He hadn't yelled at Lorne when he suggested that they use MALP reconnaissance only on fifty or sixty percent of the planets in order to speed up the search. And he hadn't demoted Col. Ellis when he'd suggested that they take this opportunity to thoroughly assess any risks that might be present on the planets they visited, effectively doubling the search teams' time at each location.
But the act was wearing thin. He was wearing thin.
And time was running out.
If he knew anything at all for certain, it was that.
And as much as he would have liked to personally search every planet in the Pegasus Galaxy, they could not afford the resources to do that much long. Atlantis needed a CO and they needed their teams back in the field gathering intel on the Replicators and the Wraith. He couldn't deprive them of those two things much longer and assure the safety and viability of the project. Sooner, rather than later, he'd have to declare Sam MIA and move on.
At least have the project move on.
As for himself….
Yeah.
He looked at the duffle that wasn't his and the room that wasn't his.
Screw it.
What the hell did it matter now, anyway?
He grabbed the bag off the chair and a few minutes later found himself standing in Sam's quarters, the door hissing quietly shut behind him.
It wasn't home, but it was the next best thing to it.
It was where Sam lived. Where she slept. Where she sent him emails. Where she missed him most, when the hectic pace of each day slowed to an Atlantean night. At least that's what she'd told him the last time—the only time—she'd come home. Lying awake, wrapped in his arms, trying to readjust for that one blessed week to an earth schedule after having barely gotten used to the Atlantis one. Days were frenetic; dozens of crises, great and small, that kept her constantly on her toes and her mind occupied; but at night, she'd confessed…at night the loneliness got to her, far worse than it ever had before.
He hadn't said anything, there in the dark. He never knew what to say, what the right words would be. He'd considered making a joke, but there had been something in her voice that had stopped him short. And besides, he'd felt the same way. Home had been something to be avoided with her gone. It was an empty place, even emptier for the two months they had gotten to spend together there uninterrupted by the cares of the universe. And now two more months had passed since that glorious week. Half a year since their wedding and he felt he'd hardly seen her.
Great freakin' cosmic scale. What you get, you've got to give up.
He tossed the bag onto the floor in the corner and dropped onto the bed. The pillow smelled vaguely of Sam's shampoo. Yeah. This was better. At least there was something of her here.
And, surprise. More pictures. Two more pictures, to be precise. One from their wedding and one from their honeymoon.
So this was where she kept them. Not in her office but on the table next to her bed.
Rolling on his side he eyed the first one. Now that had been a surprise. Sam showing up at their wedding in dress blues. Not quite what he'd expected, he had to admit, but when she had explained why, he understood. And hey, no point in tempting fate. If clothing choices were all it took to turn tragedy to happiness, then he could certainly live with his bride looking like she stepped out of an Air Force recruiting poster. If only her little bit of superstition had worked.
The second photo was from Hawaii. It was such a tourist shot. Him in a ridiculously loud tropical shirt, Sam in a halter top and sarong, a couple of pineapple drinks on the table in front of them. But instead of the big, sappy grin the photographer had asked for, they had kissed. The camera had caught Sam's hand holding Jack's face in just the right way so that the shiny new wedding ring on her finger reflected the light from the luau fire, creating a little starburst flare. Since it was a digital shot, the guy with the camera had offered to take another, thinking the flare a distraction; but they'd liked this one, and the focus on the ring had seemed somehow appropriate.
Sam's ring. Where was it?
He knew she never wore it on duty, so she wouldn't have had it with her on this mission.
The bedside table had no drawer, so it wasn't there. He got up and began to search for it—dresser, bathroom, closet. Nothing. Finally he opened a small wooden box set decoratively on the low side table next to the chair. Inside he found a set of dogtags—not real ones, he realized after a few seconds, remembering. He'd bought these for her at the Air and Space Museum in DC before she'd left for Atlantis.
"Just so you won't forget me," he'd told her, teasing.
Fingering them, he read what he'd had engraved on them:
O'Neill, Samantha
Full Bird Colonel, USAF
Atlantis, DC, Fishing….
And hanging from them was her wedding ring.
With this ring….He remembered the look on her face when he'd slid it on her finger. Her eyes—those eyes—the ones he'd gotten lost in eleven years ago and had never found his way out of—had been brimming with tears. But for once, after all the times those tears had been for pain or loss or grief, these were for joy. The sight of them, of her, standing there next to him, taking his ring—hell, taking him, the unworthy SOB he was—had nearly tripped him up. The words had caught in his throat that had suddenly gone tight and uncooperative. He'd had to clear it. Start over. She'd smiled at him. Understanding. And then the ring was on her finger.
I now pronounce you….
He hadn't even heard the rest of it. And if anyone had been expecting a chaste little kiss as a matter of ceremony, well….
The rigid uniform skirt had made it more of a challenge, but he'd managed to sweep her over backward, taking her completely by surprise. The kiss had lasted a long time. A very long time. Finally he'd felt a tapping on his shoulder. Straightening up and setting Sam on her feet he'd raised a questioning eyebrow at Daniel, who was the tapper.
Um. Just wanted to let you know…the rest of us are still here.
Mitchell had started the applause after that. Not that there were many there. They'd tried to keep it as close to family as possible. Which meant SG1. And Cassie. And George Hammond, looking relaxed and radiant in his retirement.
Sam had blushed furiously. Nearly as red as when they'd started down the aisle and he'd made some smart-ass remark that had taken her completely off guard. Something he'd made good on too. Later.
He found himself smiling, staring at the ring. It was still nearly as shiny as in the picture. She'd gotten too little chance to wear it.
The smile faded.
He couldn't leave it here. He wouldn't leave it here.
He slid the chain over his neck and tucked it under his shirt. It made a soft ting as it hit his own tags and he could feel the extra weight of the ring. She'd worn his old academy ring this way once, when he'd first asked her to marry him. Before he could get her a proper ring, which had almost come too late, thanks to the damned Ori.
I want you to know…I don't regret a thing. Not a single thing…I just wish we'd had more time..
Yeah.
Me too.
Jack made his way back to the bed and lay down again, looking one more time at the picture from Kauai.
What he wouldn't give….
"No regrets. Right Sam?" he said aloud to the picture.
Maybe if he told it to himself often enough, he'd start to believe it.
Covering his eyes with his hand, he let out a half-shudder, half-sigh.
Twenty-four more hours. That's all the time he could give it. Hell, he'd look for her 'til the end of time if he could. But that wasn't possible.
Twenty-four hours. Then they'd declare her MIA.
He'd have to call Cassie then. And Mark. Get a message off to Teal'c. He'd want to know.
An odd list of tasks started to form in his mind. Logistical stuff he'd need to do when he got back. It kept him…focused.
He couldn't hope anymore. The twenty-four hours was just to be sure. But he knew. Had known. Almost from the start.
If there had been anyway for Sam to get back, she would have by now.
It was as simple as that.
She was gone.
And he was alone.
Again.
Probably just as he deserved to be. Stupid son of a bitch that he was.