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PART TWENTY
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She woke up slowly, almost dreamily. Her bed was warm and comfortable, and she could feel golden sunlight warming her wrist where it lay. She smiled lazily, enjoying the warmth as it toasted her skin, growing warmer and warmer and warmer until suddenly she realised her wrist was burning blood red and throbbing with pain.
Her eyes flew open, the world a blinding white that stung her eyes and dulled the flare of pain from her wrist for scant seconds.
"Easy, easy," someone was saying, but she didn't know who.
Something inside her was missing, she thought blindly, struggling to sit up and find it.
Find what?
"Garshaw?" she called out desperately, fighting the hands trying to hold her down. "Garshaw? Where are you?"
"Shh, Bek," someone soothed, firm hands pressing her shoulders back into the softness of her bed.
"I need to find Garshaw," she insisted, her voice scratching brokenly into her throat. "She's gone."
"Bek, honey," a sympathetic voice said. Janet Fraiser, Bek realised suddenly, Cassandra's mother was the one holding her down.
"I need to find her, Janet!" Bek said desperately.
"You know better than that," Janet said quietly.
And Bek did know better. She remembered a moment of fear and apprehension just before Garshaw released the poison. She remembered feeling cold and empty.
"I couldn't stop her," Bek whispered, closing her eyes. It was so quiet in her head without Garshaw there, even though the Tok'ra had only been present for a day.
"It was her choice," Janet said. Bek appreciated the contact as Janet stroked a gentle over her hair, smoothing back the lank and dirty strands.
"I couldn't stop her," Bek repeated. "I was powerless."
She hated the Tok'ra, Bek realised suddenly. Despite promises and assurances of a symbiotic relationship, the Tok'ra had taken control of the situation and ignored Bek's opinions and wants. The Tok'ra had used her, and now she was gone.
She hated Garshaw with an ache of emptiness that rivalled the stabbing pain of her wrist.
"Where's Cassie?" Bek asked after the silence grew too thick.
"Sleeping," Janet said.
Bek thought maybe there was something Janet wasn't telling her, but the blissful haze of sleep was more comforting than the cold emptiness of being alone, so she closed her eyes and allowed herself to slip away.
---
Something she recognised from a past lifetime tickled at her senses like a long forgotten smell that teased her memory until curiosity forced her to open her eyes and find out what it was.
"How are you feeling?" her dad asked.
How are you feeling.
Samantha Carter's eyes burnt with unshed tears, and she blinked them away furiously, determined not to cry. "Fine," she lied, staring at him.
He was silent for several long seconds, and then he surprised her. A single tear, large and glistening, rolled down his cheek and dropped onto the back of one aching hand. It was hot and wet and trickled across her skin until it pooled on the cool sheet beneath her palm.
"God, Sam," he whispered, biting his lip as another tear escaped.
She wondered why Selmak didn't stop the unusual display of emotion.
"When did you get here?" Sam whispered instead, trying to still the pounding her skull and work out where she was. "What happened?"
"It's almost over, Sam," her dad said, gently taking her hand in his and lightly rubbing her skin with his thumb. "The Goa'uld left twenty four hours ago, and scientists around the US are working on the compound in the Goa'uld memory crystals which should help eradicate the bugs."
Almost over?
Again tears threatened to escape, and Sam tried to squeeze her father's fingers with her own. Her arm, however, spasmed with pain and she clenched her teeth to ride the wave of agony.
"Your arm will always hurt when it's cold," Jacob murmured once she had her breath back. "We did what we could, but you shattered the bones completely when you jammed it in those doors."
She remembered the burning sensation as the bones were crumbled to dust in her fingers.
"What about everyone else?"
She saw him hesitate, and guessed what was coming.
"Jack's in bad shape – his shoulder was infected and he has several other fairly significant injuries. His state of health wasn't good to begin with, and it's going to take him a while to recover from this."
"Cassie?" Sam demanded.
Jacob sighed. "She's alive, Sam, and that's all we know for now. We did what we could, but if she wakes up there's a lot of damage we couldn't undo."
Cassie, with her bright eyes and cheeky grin. Cassie with her moods and scowls and warm hugs and sticky kisses. Cassie smelling of shampoo and sitting against her on the sofa while they watched endless cartoons and cuddled the damn dog.
"Who else?"
"Garshaw didn't make it," Jacob said quietly. "She sacrificed herself. Bek woke up a while ago and, physically, she'll recover completely."
Jacob didn't have to tell her what it was like to have a symbiote die inside you – Sam was well aware of what it entailed.
"Paul Davis will recover almost completely, Janet had a battering but she bounced back. Svetlana Markhov, Colonel Samuels, Walter Davis and Tom Locke all died."
She'd really liked Davis, Sam thought dully, and Tom had treated her with respect.
"How many Jaffa died?"
"Too many," Jacob said quietly.
She stared at him. "Fucking bastards," she spat, glaring at him. "They had a choice, and I hope they rot in hell for what they wanted to do."
He stared at her in horror, as though she were a stranger he didn't know or recognise. He didn't know her, Sam thought, because she had changed more than even she had realised. She didn't recognise herself anymore.
"You don't believe that, Sam," he said quietly.
Maybe once she didn't believe that, but now she didn't know what she believed anymore.
"I'm tired," she said instead, and closed her eyes.
She didn't move until she finally heard his footsteps move away from her and recede down the hall. Only then did she open her stinging eyes and stare up at the ceiling, wishing that maybe she had cried in front of him so he'd give her a hug and tell her it would all be okay again.
Her eyes kept stinging.
---
"You should rest," Paul Davis said.
"You should be in bed," Janet returned, not taking her eyes off the still figure of her daughter.
"I needed to get up," Paul argued.
She heard him shuffling around on the linoleum floor, waiting until he dragged a plastic chair over to sit beside her and keep watch over Cassie. "I'll sit here until you get back, Janet."
"I can't leave her," Janet said tiredly. "She should have woken up by now."
"She will wake up," Paul promised, even though Janet knew it was an empty promise. He couldn't say whether or not her daughter would wake up, just like no one else could predict it. And if Cassie did wake up, or didn't, Janet wanted to be there either way.
"You have to sleep some time," Paul continued.
"I can't," Janet said dully. "I'm past sleep now."
With sleep came nightmares and the smell of burning flesh. She shuddered on her chair, despite the warmth in the room, and tucked her sneakered feet up onto the edge of the chair so that she could wrap her arms around her legs and rest her chin on her knees.
"You can let go now," Paul said quietly.
"Have you been watching those talkshows again?" Janet quipped irritably. "I'm fine, Paul."
She wasn't exactly certain when they started calling each other by their first names, but for some reason it felt appropriate. As though they'd seen too much and done too much together to bother with the formalness of rank and protocol.
And he'd saved her daughter, Janet added mentally.
"I spoke to the President today," Paul said. "They've started distributing the anti-viral and experimenting with the eradication compound."
"They have no way of determining what the long term effects of either of those chemicals will be," Janet commented.
Paul shrugged. "I guess that it could be argued the long term effects are not as bad as the short term effect of ignoring the bugs."
"There will be birth defects, or an increased mortality, kidney damage, liver damage… whatever. Once the bugs are taken care of, and the effects of these untried drugs come into light, we'll be the bad guys."
"Timothy will," Paul said quietly.
"Pardon?"
"He's getting a commendation and an award," Paul admitted. "For his efforts during a time of great trial and tribulation."
"Did you quote that?" Janet asked, trying to ignore the sting of bitterness his words drove through her soul. Timothy, the man who ignored their advice to leave the bugs alone, would be the one to be rewarded for his part in 'saving them', even though his fooling with the bugs gave the Goa'uld the intergalactic political window through which they could crawl in the first place.
"I think he used 'great strife' and 'perseverance' when he spoke to me, but yeah, something like that," Paul smiled.
"Is the bug spray going to work?" Janet asked finally.
Paul shrugged. "All the current trials are showing it does. They're using an EM field to attract the bugs, and then effectively crop dusting them with it. It's going to take a long, long time to get rid of them all, if we ever accomplish getting rid of them all. The population is still advised to remain indoors unless they've been exposed to the vaccine already, and the anti-viral is being produced more effectively than we thought would be possible."
"Think we'll ever recover completely?" Janet asked, thinking about the devastation of EMPs and bombs and the bugs.
"No," Paul said honestly. "They detonated nukes in two states, and their current estimates are suggesting that less than a quarter of our population will survive in the long term. And that's ignoring the long term effects of this 'crop dusting' and anti-virals."
Janet sighed, and closed her eyes as she rested her forehead on her knees.
"The President is also going to clear Major Carter's name, and present her, Colonel O'Neill and Harry Maybourne with commendations of bravery."
Janet could only imagine what Sam and Jack would say when they found out they were going to be awarded for bravery by the government that effectively betrayed them.
"What about you?"
"You too," Paul said instead.
"Pardon?"
"You, myself, and Andrews will also receive those commendations. Tom Locke, Samuels, Walter Davis and Dr. Markhov will also receive recognition."
"What about Bek and Cassie?" Janet asked, not opening her eyes.
"I don't know," Paul admitted. "I'm not even sure the President is exactly aware of what their involvement was or what they did."
It would be nice, Janet thought, if the girls got some recognition, but ultimately she wasn't too inclined to care. She'd been stripped of her rank and shamed by the Air Force, and she didn't really care anymore about things like awards and commendations these days.
All she really wanted was for her little girl to wake up again and smile at her.
"Go to sleep, Janet," Paul murmured.
If she was still awake, Janet might have answered him.
---
Maybourne found Jack sitting on a plastic chair outside Carter's hospital room.
"She's allowed to have visitors," Maybourne said quietly, stopping beside Jack. With El'son there, he could sense the naquadah in Jack's system, and El'son's knowledge and memories exposed Maybourne to a whole host of things he didn't want to know, and didn't need to know about the Goa'uld. Namely what they had done to Jack O'Neill.
"How's your visitor?"
Maybourne was really trying not to think about that.
You cannot ignore me for ever, Harold.
Maybourne, Maybourne corrected sharply before he remembered he was ignoring his roommate.
"Maybourne?" Jack asked, lifting his head to look up at Maybourne. It appeared to cost Jack a lot of effort to life his head, and Maybourne frowned at him.
"Should you even be out of bed, Jack?"
"I've spent too much time in hospital beds lately, Maybourne. This chair is fine."
"How's the arm?" Maybourne asked, wisely ignoring Jack's obvious defiance of doctors' orders.
"Oh, you know," Jack said airily, giving a feeble wave with his good hand. "Thanks for that, by the way."
Maybourne shrugged and dropped into a chair beside Jack. "Some things about the Tok'ra are pretty useful," he conceded.
"Did I make the right call?" Jack asked finally, his voice strangely uncertain. Maybourne wasn't used to hearing Jack sound uncertain, and he studied the man for several seconds.
Was it the right call?
"I'd be dead if you didn't make that call," Maybourne said finally. "I think blended is better than dead."
Oddly enough Jack gave a dry chuckle which quickly turned into a hacking cough.
"I'm fine," Jack rasped when Maybourne grabbed hold of his arm as though to steady him in the chair. "Just a tickle."
They settled down in silence for several long minutes, before Jack finally spoke again. "Did you ever consider retirement?"
"I was retired, Jack," Maybourne pointed out. "Great little deal involving beaches, bikinis and cocktails."
"You thinking you should have stayed retired?"
"And missed all this fun?" Maybourne questioned.
Jack sighed. "I'm thinking I should have stayed retired."
Maybourne often forgot Jack O'Neill had retired once before the SGC, and it was always discomforting to think of a man like O'Neill sitting in a room with a gun in his hands ready to blow his brains out.
"Why? You've done a lot of good out there, Jack."
"If we hadn't done what we did, none of this would have happened."
"You saying Kinsey was right?" Maybourne asked dryly. "That the Stargate should have been shut up and hidden away?"
"I was going to get a dog, you know," Jack said quietly. "Before they pulled me out of retirement. A retriever, or a Collie. Wasn't sure which, but I had the names of some breeders."
"Why are you telling me this?" Maybourne asked, staring at Jack in confusion. Jack O'Neill wasn't someone for sentimental, wispy talking about the way things could have been or should have been. Jack O'Neill was more of a 'I don't like how it is now so I'm damn well gonna change it' person.
"How can you retire after something like this? How can you just sit by a lake with a beer and a dog, fishing, and the world just keeps going by?"
Maybourne shrugs. "The world keeps going by anyway. Might as well sit back and enjoy the ride."
"What does the snake think?" Jack asked.
It is what he fought for, isn't it?
"El'son thinks I'm right," Maybourne said smugly.
"Of course he does."
"What's really bothering you, Jack?"
Jack hesitated and opened his mouth, and then closed it again. "Nothing," he said finally.
He is afraid that this isn't real. That nothing will last.
I didn't ask for your input this time.
I am right, though.
Maybourne rolled his eyes. You think you know everything.
No, but for O'Neill it has been a long, long time, and suddenly he is something he thought he would never be again.
What's that?
Free.
"You should go talk to her Jack," Maybourne said quietly, for the first time thankful for the Tok'ra he was blended with. "I think she's one of the only people who understands."
Jack O'Neill of old would have rolled his eyes and said something sharp and witty to brush off Maybourne's comment. This Jack O'Neill, the old and tired Jack O'Neill, simply smiled tiredly and shrugged in resignation.
"What if she doesn't?" he asked quietly.
"You still have friends here, Jack."
Maybourne turned to walk away, when Jack called out to him. "I thought I told you to stop watching the Hallmark Channel. You get sappier and sappier each time I see you."
Maybourne grinned broadly at the response, and even though he didn't stop walking he called back, "But they have such great commercials, Jack!"
"That snake is making you sappy."
Maybe El'son was helping with understanding motives, Maybourne conceded, but was it really so inconceivable that somehow during their twisted, warped time of working together and against each other, that he'd developed a strong respect and even affection for O'Neill?
Then again, maybe friends was too strong a word for them.
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