CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Author notes: Dear readers, I apologize for this exasperating dead-air time. Many of you wrote me off line requesting, begging, even demanding that I give you the grand finale. Sadly, serious personal issues have prevented me from finishing this novella and another, not to mention I had little access to my pc for almost four months. That aside, I refused to write a sloppy conclusion/quick fix, not to mention my need to see how Season 10 ended. Hopefully you will be pleased with my efforts to make Never Say Never as cannon as possible. Believe me, considering what all went down and didn't go down in 'Unending,' that wasn't easy!
If you haven't recently read this fic please revisit chapters thirteen and fourteen to refresh your memory. And as always, your opinions are highly treasured by this insecure writer.
PS: There are a few more chapters to come!
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Sam's head hurt something fierce. She tried to move but failed.
"Hi, Samantha," her voice addressed herself. Spooky! "Open your eyes and look around. It won't hurt I promise."
Sam blinked and did as told. Here she was again, standing in the midst of nothingness, and yet there was light and mass. She glanced about and gasped. Like trailers from movies, memories of the most intimate nature swirled around her in living color. The most recent being last night with Jack. Sam blushed looked away, but her open eyes couldn't escape the projections.
The scenes of her life started with her birth when she left the secure warmth of her mother's womb while gangly hands pulled her gently into the world. Sam blinked and shivered as through the eyes of a newborn the first face she saw was not that of her mother, but of a pimply faced youth with unruly brown hair. She tried to breath but couldn't, until she was held upside down and felt a solid smack on her small behind. Sam let out a loud wail of protest.
Samantha proceeded to wail as the boy wrapped her in his flannel shirt and she inhaled his scent, a scent she'd never forget. She heard him over that of her mother's concerned voice, "Got one strong set of lungs there, Dorothy," he'd said, and placed her in her mother's arms.
"Yes she does. I don't know how to thank you, young man. Had I been stranded on this elevator alone—oh, I knew I shouldn't have come today. Jacob will be royally ticked!"
"Jacob's your husband?"
"Yes. He's a wonderful man. Just that he took leave before we deployed overseas so I could come home and visit family and friends. I used to work here at the museum . . . ."
"Hey, I was born in Chicago and lived here until my parents died in a car accident—."
"Oh, I'm so sorry."
He shrugged. "That's okay. I don't remember them much. My grandparents are raising me. I live in Minnesota, land of sky blue waters, man-eating mosquitoes and wallopin' Croppys." He grinned. "Anyhow, we're visiting my aunt and uncle. I'm here with my cousins, but got bored out of my gourd, and decided to find some action. Guess I did." He smiled down at Sam then rolled his dark brown eyes. "Crap! My uncle's so going to kill me."
"Don't worry, Jack, I'll explain everything once we get off the elevator."
"Well, I messed with the emergency wiring. Hopefully, they now know we're stuck between floors."
"I noticed. You're good with your hands, Jack."
Crimson rushed up his face. "Yeah, so I'm told. I wanna be an astronaut and travel in space—"
Sam interrupted with a squawk and her mother rocked her. "Hey, you think I should call her Dorothy?" her mother asked him.
"Nay, with that blonde fuzz and those baby blues she's more the Samantha type."
"That's funny," her mother laughed softly.
"What?"
"If she'd been a boy, Jacob had wanted to name her Samuel after his grandfather."
"Oy vey! That's just wrong on so many levels." Sam felt his warm touch caress her cheek.
"Don't worry. Hopefully we'll compromise and call her Samantha like you suggested."
"Well, I'm just saying. . ." his voice trailed off, is cheeks reddened.
Sam remembered cuddling and cooing in her mother's embrace and yet her limited newborn gaze searched until it rested on the adolescent's smiling, pimpled features and dark sable dark eyes. Sam smiled. He smiled and she glimpsed dimples. Holy Hannah, this was her Jack!
The floating images shifted. Sam was a toddler playing with her brother Mark, baking cookies with her mother, next scene asleep in her Barbie bed—then the Wicked Witch of the West tore her from Jack's possessive arms. He was taller and skinnier, but determined to protect her. Sam saw the witch's flying monkeys kick and hit him. Then the witch held a gadget that shot a white light into his forehead. Jack screamed and Sam cried out his name. She called him Jonathan and then there was nothing.
Sam was baking cookies when her father came home. "Sammy, something terrible has happened. You're mother's been in a car accident and she's--
"
"Noo!" Tears of anguished grief tracked her cheeks.
Next she was learning to fly dad's Cessna 152. Several more abductions by the witch, high school, college, the Air Force Academy. Eventually the witch had a name, Nirrti. Always, though, Sam was with Jack. She realized that back then she didn't remember his name, but that didn't matter. He christened her Dorothy. She called him Scarecrow. The trailers speed by faster. Onboard Nirrti's ship, Sam gave birth to several infants that were torn from her womb through the Goa'uld version of a c-section. Most of them died in her arms. And then Cassandra was born and Sam was able to see and touch her. Jack tried to save their daughter but got struck down. As if it'd just happened Sam screamed for their lost child and injured lover. That image faded and Sam was a Special Forces courier, named Shimmer, her contact's name Striker—Jack. The first conscious contact since her birth and it'd left her titillated and confused. She'd fantasized about him ever since. Next, her engagement to Jonas Hanson and finding out she wasn't a virgin.
The next scene was meeting and falling head over heels in love with Jack O'Neill dressed as Zorro at the White House Halloween party. The rest of her memories swept by in a heartbeat and yet each moment and event felt as if it had just happened. Suddenly, she was watching Jack chop wood. She slugged him and here she was watching her life vanish into the dark void that surrounded her.
"Am I dead?" she asked the void, hoping and praying, to see the light of heaven any moment.
"Not yet." A light shot down from above and a familiar figure immerged from the darkness. Replicarter!
"Did you have a nice trip down memory lane, sister?"
Sam opened her mouth but the Replicator answered with a wry smile. "I certainly did. Over half a century just like that." She snapped her fingers. "Yet barely a second in my lifetime."
"Why?"
"Because all those years we had you, we couldn't get break through your Tauri's wall of resistance. We had flashes of your life with SG-1 including the last few years with Colonel Mitchell and Vala whatshername. But somehow you blocked anything dealing with your childhood, especially your abductions by Nirrti and your Ancient bond with Jack. Now we know." Replicarter smiled smugly. "You do know Nirrti is alive?"
"No! That's a lie. Jack torched her years ago."
"He torched a clone or should I say a clone of Janet Fraiser. Nirrti herself including another clone of her original host are very much alive. Remember Baal's clones?"
"Who could forget!" Sam snorted.
"Well, Nirrti was the clone maker and—"
"What do you want?" Sam found her voice and her spine.
"Some girlfriend-talk before Fifth finds us out." RepliCarter reached out and caressed Samantha's hot cheek.
Sam jerked back as if repulsed. "I've nothing to say to either of you." She crossed her arms and looked away.
"Oh, but you do. Actually, you've been a babbling brook of Intel. Of course, not necessarily what Fifth sent you back to Earth to acquire. If anything, he's rather put-out and green with envy with all the hot sex you and Jack have had. Talk about making up for lost time." She rolled her eyes and made a lewd gesture.
"Then I'm alive. I-I'm not one of you?"
"Oh, quite alive and no, you're not one of my brethren. And I advise that stays between us. My beloved Fifth has spent all these years convincing you that you're me. He'd be really pissed if he knew I let the cat out of the bag. Fifth hates when he fails, especially anything that concerns you, Samantha Carter-O'Neill."
"Why are you telling me this?" She took a step forward.
"For the same reason I shared what I did the last time we had a heart-to-head chat. Oh, when was that?" she tapped her chin. "Ah, yes, at the Alpha site, when you were engaged to that sweet, little, clone of Pete Shanahan."
"Daniel destroyed you."
"No, just one of me. When Fifth and I reunited he was angry that I'd betrayed him. And yet, he still loves us." She gestured between them. "So even if he discovers we talked, he'll forgive me. He always does," she said with confidence.
"I asked what you want." Sam hissed.
"Would you believe I want this battle for earth to end?"
"Really. How?" Sam assumed the next word she heard would be surrender.
"By giving us what we want, Atlantis and the Odyssey."
Sam scoffed. "And that'd make you all go away?"
"For now, yes."
"Why?"
Because we're dying. Most of Earth's technical resources are not advanced enough for us to continue our evolution. Jack's known this for sometime. He knows that if we got a hold of Atlantis we would be able to penetrate your Ancient defense shield. In fact, had our cousins from Atlantis shared their technology, you and I would not be chatting. You'd be dead! As for the Odyssey, the Asgard transferred all their advanced knowledge into that ship. That also would benefit us."
"And after that you'd destroy us." Sam snorted.
"No. There'd be no purpose. There are more advanced galaxies than the sordid little Milky Way. The problem is we're stuck here."
"You've lied before. I've no reason to believe you." Sam countered.
"I've not always lied. I told you that unlike you I pursued my ambitions and one of them is Jack. And as much as it hurts I'm willing to give him up." The Replicator shrugged. "But if you deny my brethren what we need, be assured that your Jack will kill you. After all, he believes you are moi. So does Charlie and the twins. And let's face it, if given the choice between the word of his children or you. . . At this point you'd lose hands down." She snickered.
Caught between a rock and a hard spot, Sam glared at her duplicate. The fact that RepliCarter had always been inside Sam's head or penetrated the force field didn't matter. Sam must pick between her husband's trust and the future of Earth. The choice was painful, the hardest thing she'd ever have to do, but then Sam always did the right thing.
Something distracted RepliCarter. "No!" She vanished.
Sam blinked. Her head ached. She slowly lifted her head off the floor and glanced around. She was in the barn.
"Mom?" Charlie knelt before her, gripping a strange looking device.
"Charlie?"
"Yeah. You okay?" He reached for her.
Sam nodded and leaned into him as he helped her stand. She glanced around and spotted RepliCarter slumped over a straw bale. "Is she?"
"No. But she's pretty messed up for a Replicator." He gestured to the palm size gadget.
"How'd you know?"
"I didn't. This only works on Replicaters, so I shot you both."
"Oh. Ouch!" she clenched her head. "Nasty headache. Didn't she have her hand in my head?"
"Nope. They're telepathic now."
"Crap."
"Yeah, my exact thought." He escorted her toward the door.
"Won't she wake up?"
"Yeah, but with a massive headache." He gestured while six armed men in civilian clothes ringed up. Weapons drawn they cautiously hoisted RepliCarter's limp form off the straw and transported it to the new SGC.
Charlie explained to his mother. "Don't worry, she won't be thinking straight for sometime. This newest version," he waved the gun, "Messes with their mind, tangles time, events, etc, it also affects the rest of the brethren. And as McKay said after he upgraded the Asgard gun Dad invented, 'The Replicators are too smart to find out what a second blast does.'"
"Which is?"
"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes."
"Gotcha. But I'd rather you'd just done the ash thing."
"We probably will, but Dad wants her alive—for now."
"Ah." Sam's headache was easing, but she still felt like she'd been dragged through a wormhole inside out.
Charlie stopped and turned into her. "Mom, I'm sorry for not believing you were you." He reached up and touched her warm face. "I should have trusted Dad's instincts. He refused to believe you were a Replicator, until he. . . ."
"What?" Sam's heart raced.
"He linked with you when you were dreaming."
"That explains a lot." She frowned and chewed her lower lip.
"More than you'll ever imagine." He blushed.
"Sorry." Sam felt heat warm her cheeks and ears.
"Don't be. I always knew you two had hot Ancient sex going on. Which gives me something to look forward to—that's if I ever find my Godsend."
"Oh, you will, son. I promise." Sam blinked as they stepped into the quiet dusk of the autumn day. She glanced at the sky. The Asgard shield was down. "So where's Jack, um your dad?"
"Um, Mom, I think we should first check on the twins and—"
"Charlie!" Sam stopped and grabbed his forearm. "Where is he?"
"I can't. . .I promised him." He held up both hands. "And as an officer obeying his CO's command, I can't tell you squat."
"So help me, Lieutenant O'Neill!" She snatched her son by his shirt collar and spun him about face. "Spill or I'll—"
"What, Ma'am?" he challenged respectfully.
His mother donned her officer's façade. Facing her full military mode Charlie didn't want to find out the what? She might be years older, but it wouldn't be the first or last time she'd drop kick him on his ass.
"Charlie?" she said in her lethal CO voice that lent no leeway.
"Fine!" He yanked free of her amazingly strong grip. "Dad's giving Fifth what he wants," he said with wet brown eyes. "He's launched Atlantis. God help him, Mom, he's sailing solo."
"Crap!"
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More to come. Promise!