All right, I know folks are going to be questioning my sanity at the end of this chapter- but let's just say things are not what they might seem to be. The story ain't over until it's over AND I usually save the best for last. Just sayin' ;-)
Just Before the Dawn
She smiles and it's like she's walked right in and taken his heart off of the shelf and every breath, every word, every smile brushes away a little bit more of the dust. "In the end, sir, everything is physics."
It's taken him years, but he thinks he finally gets that.
--
Thirty miles away, the chevrons of the stargate light up one by one.
--
Daniel scrutinizes the transmission from the MALP again. "McKay, can you magnify that bit?" He taps an area just to the right of center.
Teal'c and General Hammond stand behind the two scientists, a quartet of intense quiet concentration in the otherwise busy control room. The recording from the MALP is hard to read, the camera obscured by snow so heavy that they hadn't even tried to send in a UAV.
"This is the last planet with a known gate between P3X-812 and the neutron star." McKay announces, although everyone already knows that.
"We've never been there before, have we?" Daniel asks.
"No, Dr. Jackson." General Hammond affirms. "It was on the routine recon list but it's always been dark, and we won't send in routine missions in the dark since that…"
"I know." Daniel cuts George off before he can finish.
"Am I missing something?" McKay asked impatiently, his eyes not leaving the screen. Something catches his eye, but it could just be the snow.
"Daniel Jackson does not wish to be reminded that he was once soundly defeated by O'Neill in a battle over Colonel Carter." Teal'c explains.
"Battle? Carter?" McKay's eyes are still on the computer.
"We were- not ourselves." Daniel slumps down on a stool and glares at Teal'c.
"I disagree, Dr. Jackson. Perhaps it was a rare opportunity for O'Neill to truly be himself."
"O'Neill," McKay mutters under his breath. "That lucky bastard." He stares vacantly at the keyboard, and then abruptly turns on his chair. "Hey- isn't she supposed to be..." he starts but then a raised eyebrow from Teal'c stops him cold. Turning back to the friendlier face of a computer screen, he muses, "Maybe they don't want to be found." He hits one more key and the area in question is magnified.
"Maybe they do." Daniel says, getting to his feet.
"Well, I'll be." Hammond can't contain his grin.
Teal'c would recognize a Power Bar wrapper anywhere in the universe.
--
Initially, Jack doesn't move from the fireplace. He knows that whatever he does next won't be quite right, but it won't be totally wrong, either. The important thing is that he actually does something, for a change. So he sits beside her and starts with something safe, the one thing they've relied on all these years to get them through, the only thing that could tell her he had never really forgotten no matter what he acted like the rest of the time. "C'mere," he says, slipping his arm around her shoulders. It's like he's pulled a trigger because in a moment her arm is around his neck and her face is against his shoulder and the relief he feels inside is so intense it takes his breath away.
The only sound is the cracking and popping of the logs in the fireplace and Jack is content just to hold her for however long she wants him to. She's looking at the fire again and her voice is so soft and slow he wonders if she knows she's speaking out loud. "Do you remember," she pauses slightly, "standing in the open cargo bay door with a parachute on your back for the very first time?"
He nods and smiles, knowing she picked out this metaphor just for him.
"That's how I feel now. It's going to be the biggest thrill of my life or it's going to break me into little tiny pieces. And I'm not sure what to do."
Jack tips his head until his lips are just above the curve of her ear.
"Jump," he whispers.
--
Daniel and Teal'c turn from the computer and make for the stairs when General Hammond's voice stops them in their tracks. "You can't gate to that planet. Heaven knows where you two will end up."
"Oh come on, General! We're so close- they're right there." Daniel gestures at the computer screen in frustration, five-point-seven light years away having no real meaning to him. Not that it ever did.
Teal'c looks at his friend, then back at General Hammond. "I will go- alone."
"I can't let you do that, Teal'c." Hammond says firmly, the same way he's said it at least a dozen times before. He shakes his head and turns to stare out at the gate.
"Even if you do make it, how are you going to get back?" McKay types a few commands rapidly into the computer, and turns the monitor to face his anxious colleagues. "Look at this gate- these symbols. It's no wonder we haven't heard from them."
Daniel stares intensely at the screen and then closes his eyes in utter dismay. "I don't recognize any of that," he says.
"Nor do I," Teal'c adds gravely.
General Hammond is still contemplating the gate when a small grin starts working at the edges of his mouth. "Gentlemen, I believe we can do this the old-fashioned way." He looks down at Walter. "Sergeant, where is the Prometheus?"
Walter, who has been quietly eavesdropping throughout the entire conversation, already has the data on the screen. "Less than a day out from P3X-124…" he stumbles, "…uh- that planet. They're coming back with the evacuees from P3X-812." Quite a few other eavesdropping personnel can be heard high-fiving and slapping each other on the back even as he speaks.
"There you go, guys," McKay says confidently. "What difference can one day make?"
-------------------------------------------------
In the end Jack doesn't make her scream his name- she lets it go on a tortured sigh that comes from somewhere deep. He thinks it's the most breathtakingly beautiful aria he's ever heard, right before the soft, insistent rhythms of her body tear away his ability to think or hear anything at all. And afterwards he won't release her, their hands intertwined, his face buried in her hair, the weight of his body on hers. He knows he's heavy but he just wants to make this moment of contact last, to press into her, soak her up and get her under his skin permanently.
"It's all right," she finally whispers against the hard muscles of his shoulder, "You can let me go."
He moves his head back just enough to see her face. "That's just it. I never could."
He kisses her gently then, almost reverently, loosing her hands so he can sweep her dampened hair back off of her forehead in a gesture so caring and sweet that she has to choke back a sob. "Don't cry," he says softly, moving his lips to catch the first tear that slides across her temple. She closes her eyes and he cradles her face in his hands, kissing her in an attempt to erase the tears, not understanding that every single thing he does only makes it worse. He finally gives up and rolls onto his back, holding her tightly against his broad chest until her slender frame stops shaking and her breaths even out.
"I'm sorry, Jack," she whispers into the curve of his neck, one hand holding his head to hers. He doesn't know what she has to be sorry for or why she's crying when he's so happy the universe could end and he'd just go to hell with a grin on his face, but he figures he has all the time in the world to find out. And he will find out because he didn't wait all these years to be with her just to screw it up. He could have done that a long time ago, but they both deserve better. So he simply strokes her hair and holds her close, because that's all either one of them really needs right now, until the fire fades and they're asleep.
A few hours later she's lying with her chin on her hands, which are in turn folded on his chest, her view of his eyes changing with his breathing. Jack tries his hardest to leave her to her thoughts, since he's the last person who'd ever ask anyone what they were thinking. But he's seen that look before. Even though his eyes are shut. "What?"
"Aren't I allowed to look at you?"
"You never just look at anything," he smiles, glad to be the center of her attention, anyway. The notebook lies on the kitchen table forgotten and closed for the longest continuous stretch of time since they arrived on the planet, and as far as he's concerned, it can stay that way for a little while longer. "I can hear those nuclear-powered trinium wheels spinning, you know."
She makes a little noise in response and Jack knows he must be totally gone because he thinks her snort of disbelief sounds absolutely charming.
He keeps his eyes closed, letting her sprawl across him to her heart's content because there are definitely worse things in life than being Carter's pillow. His hand is in the back pocket of her BDUs and he thinks he's going to enjoy making sure she puts some weight back on because he's going to have to evaluate her carefully and often considering they don't have a scale. He's just thoughtful like that. The real problem is who's going to fix lunch because both of them have been overtaken by an incredible reluctance to actually get up and do something. Jack's mulling over this profound dilemma when suddenly she has a burst of motivation and sits up.
"I think I'm going to go over to the workshop for a while."
"Why?" Jack can't think of a single reason compelling enough to make him want to go over there right this minute, not even if there was Guinness on tap instead of his sorry excuse for beer.
"You'll see," she says mysteriously, then she gets to her feet. "I'll be back in a few minutes, sir."
He smiles lazily at her and puts his now-cold hands behind his head. "You're gonna have to work on that, Carter."
"So are you, Jack."
He doesn't agree, but he'll just let her figure that out eventually. She smiles back and leaves the room but it's not long until she returns.
"Yes?" He hasn't moved a muscle.
"The door."
"Oh." It's more of a groan than an actual word, and he makes himself get up and follow her out into the kitchen.
"If you can just push it open far enough, I'll get out and do the rest." She looks at him impatiently as she pulls his coat on over hers. Jack thinks that by now he ought to know better than to come between her and her stuff, and so he resigns himself to a few minutes of work. He puts his good shoulder up against the door, braces his feet and shoves his entire body weight against the wood a few times until she can slip out. "Thank you. I can get it from here." The snow has drifted high against the door, and everywhere else it looks to be two feet deep and fine as Colorado powder.
"That's a lot of snow to shovel."
"It's okay. It's really light and I don't want to hurt your shoulder."
"You didn't seem all that worried about it a couple of hours ago."
She shuts the door in his face before he can see her blush. Jack just stands there smiling for a few moments before deciding that if she could shovel the entire pathway, he could least fix something to eat.
He's able to put together what appears to be a decent meal without too much trouble, although he suspects it's only because his standards are a little lower than hers. Surveying the room, he decides the atmosphere really isn't too bad even if the food is, with the fire flickering through the wide doorway leading to the common room and the cozy, intimate space. And then, for the first time in weeks, he feels an intense desire to go home to earth because suddenly it seems as if this isn't enough. There's so much he wants to do. With her.
Jack opens the door to find her but is greeted by comprehensive darkness and silence. "Carter!" He steps out into the air and by the feel of it in his nose and lungs he immediately estimates it to be twenty or thirty degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. There's no light on in the other house and nothing along the path. He shoves the door back into a snowdrift to hold it open so the light can flood the pathway until it veers off into oblivion, and grabbing the flashlight off the counter he plunges out into the frigid night.
Fear leaps up to clutch and claw at him again as he finds her on the ground just below the porch steps of the workshop. "Sam?" She's limp in his arms but to his great relief Jack finds her carotid pulse and it seems weak though that's probably because his fingers are rapidly losing their feeling. He doesn't see any obvious signs of injury, and he quickly skims the flashlight over the blindingly white snow and across the house, looking for her attacker.
Finding nothing, he sweeps the light higher up, across the black picket of trees and snowy rooftop, and then he sees the eaves.
"Dammit!" It wasn't an alien predator, staff weapon or force field, but something infinitely more mundane. It was just snow off of the roof, a slab of ice knocked loose, probably when she shut the door to leave. Just snow.
"God," he moans forcefully through gritted teeth. It's the closest he's ever going to get to a prayer, and what it lacks in complexity it possesses in sincerity. "Come on, Sam." Jack picks her up off of the frozen ground and gets her into the house before they both freeze to death, kicking the door shut as he enters. Lying her down by the fire, he's almost afraid to look her over. He remembers one winter night as a child when his family was snowed in at the cabin and he was awakened by a crack that he would later compare to a large-caliber weapon. In the morning, the adults had to take down the deck railing where the ice had splintered it to pieces. Jack swallows hard and wonders what it can do to a human being. Ignoring his own convulsive shivering he gently pulls her cap off of her head, and it's frozen bright red on one side. He turns her head and gently parts her blood-matted hair to find a scalp laceration that's no longer bleeding. But Jack knows that doesn't mean much because there's no way to know what's going on inside, and she's so cold. So very cold.
He takes a deep breath and focuses on what he can do, instead of the nearly infinite number of things that he can't. He's removing his icy jacket from her when he notices there is something clenched in her pale hand- a folded piece of paper- a piece of paper she dug through snow in the middle of the frozen night to retrieve.
Jack carefully tucks it away in his back pocket and continues peeling away her clothing when he abruptly gets the strangest feeling that his earlier plea has been answered. There's a feeling of pressure in his ears as brilliant white light suddenly knifes in under the door, around the windows, down the chimney, anywhere a few photons can fit through, pure and silent and vaguely ominous. "What the…"
He never believed in angels before and he still doesn't unless they happen to sound like Reynolds and Lorne and have to pound on the door instead of just floating right on in.
--------------------------------------------
"General O'Neill, sir, you're under observation." The ship's doctor is surprisingly burly and not interested in having his patient defying orders.
"You can observe me right here." O'Neill suggests.
"I'm not above carrying you to the bed myself, sir."
"And I'm not above decking you, so let's just call it even, shall we?" He is normally a lot nicer to docs because they're basically helpful and have their own special means of exacting revenge, but he's not in a very good mood. He hears the doctor sigh in resignation, and he's pretty sure his records will contain the words "against medical advice". It's doc-speak for insubordination.
Doc-speak for what she has, O'Neill has learned, is called, "epidural hematoma" and she needs surgery as soon as they land. He doesn't know if that's because they can't operate on brains aboard ship or if it's because they don't want to operate on this brain. Galactically speaking, the planet is very close to earth just like Carter said it would be and so he's okay with waiting because if anyone's going to take a Black & Decker to her head he'd rather it be someone at the SGC.
He doesn't know that they already did.
He watches her and pretends she's just sleeping which works until the nurse comes over and lifts her eyelids to peer in with a penlight and Carter doesn't move or even blink; and O'Neill's chest gets tight at the sight of it. But the nurse nods in satisfaction anyway and O'Neill is able to breath again. Then there is the matter of the thumb-sized thing sticking up from her head, which he has also been studiously trying to ignore until now.
"What's that?" he nods toward the creepy bit of plastic.
"A bolt, sir."
He flinches. "Couldn't they come up with a better name than that? She's not Frankenstein, for crying out loud."
The nurse smiles painfully. "It fits."
Fortunately O'Neill's all-to-vivid imagination is interrupted by Colonel Ronson's voice. "Just about there, sir. We'll take you right to the SGC."
O'Neill turns and raises his eyebrows at the tall, serious commander of the Prometheus.
"It's 2 a.m. and a small EM pulse will handle local air traffic control long enough."
O'Neill nods in agreement. Somehow, the thought of it still being night is a comfort. He doesn't want to deal with the day, just yet.
"One more thing, General." Ronson reaches into the breast pocket of his flight suit. "Central supply found this in your pocket." He hands O'Neill the damp, folded piece of paper.
O'Neill takes the note and starts to open it, then looks up. "Thanks, Colonel." The commander nods and leaves him to read it alone. It's a crossword puzzle, done in tiny, meticulous Carter handwriting. The questions are on the back, more than fifty of them, and they're all things they've done or seen together, not all of them good which strikes him as an unusually healthy attitude toward all the crap they've been through. "Happy Sunrise, Sir." it reads across the top. Tears fog his vision as he realizes she just couldn't wait for spring.
---------------------------------------------------
"How did you find us?" O'Neill asks. Hammond has wisely decided to go ahead with the debriefing to keep their minds off of what is going on two floors below.
"An erudite process of elimination," McKay explains grandly.
"A neutron star pair." Daniel clarifies.
"Does that have gravity?" O'Neill wonders aloud.
"An enormous amount." McKay states.
"Okay, then don't get too puffed up, McKay. Carter would've had us off of there in just a little while longer." O'Neill smiles. "But we do appreciate the effort. And the timing."
Hammond slides her notebook across to him. "Jack, what's this?"
"Carter's notebook. She used it when the computer ran out of juice."
Hammond looks patiently at him.
"Oh- you mean what's in it?" He opens it up. "It's full of stars. And really weird glyphs on the gate. Maybe you'd get something out of it..." he slides it across the table, veering away from McKay's reach. "...Daniel."
Undeterred, McKay peers over his shoulder as Daniel leafs through the first few pages. McKay whistles, impressed. "Wow. She was trying to translate Earth's coordinates into your point of view? That's superhuman. I don't think even Sam could do it."
"She started with Starry Night." Jack shrugs. "And I helped. A little." He's not the only one in the room who is surprised that Jack O'Neill would admit to engaging in such a nerdy activity, never mind actually doing it.
"You helped?" McKay says in disbelief. He narrows his eyes and regards Jack with suspicion. "There must be something in the water up there."
For once Jack has no smartass comeback at his disposal as he wonders if he's really that transparent or just paranoid.
"There is no water on P3X-124, Dr. McKay." Teal'c interjects. "There is only snow."
The entire group chuckles at Teal'c's chronic problem with Tau'ri turns of phrase, but O'Neill catches the smallest of smiles at the corner of the Jaffas's eyes as they meet his, and he understands Teal'c just saved his ass as surely as Jack saved Teal'c's on the very first day they met.
St. Harriman suddenly appears in the doorway. "General."
"Yes?" Hammond replies.
Walter shifts slightly. "Uh- O'Neill. They're done, sir."
O'Neill turns to Hammond without a word but he knows exactly what O'Neill wants. "Go on, Jack. We'll finish this later."
He and SG-1 meet Warner in the observation room, where they can't actually observe Carter but only the bandages, equipment and a flurry of people that mark her approximate location. Immediately O'Neill notices that the staff are moving in a deliberate but relaxed manner and then he sees that Dr. Warner is smiling broadly."She's going to be fine," the doctor says, squeezing O'Neill's shoulder with a hand that seems far too big to be mucking around in people's heads.
"Thanks, doc." He stares out at the busy room, anchoring himself with one set of fingertips on the solid glass as his life starts to come back to him. He has had his soul saved twice in one day and he's going to make that mean something, somehow. But then a new thought enters his mind and his temporary relief retreats. "What about frostbite?"
"Frostbite?" Warner says with a sly grin, "I was going to compliment you on your pre-emptive use of hypothermia to treat elevated intracranial pressure in the field, General."
"What?' O'Neill's pretty sure he can't do anything that involves that many syllables.
"I think he means it was probably a good thing she was cold." Daniel explains, reinforcing Jack's belief that sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
"Exactly," the doctor affirms. Turning to leave, he pauses. "Does Colonel Carter have any family nearby?"
Jack says evenly, "Yes, she has a fiancé." He doesn't see Teal'c's eyes glance over to him and then straight ahead to the wall just behind the doctor.
"Good. She's going to need all the help she can get."
"I thought you said she'll be all right." Daniel points out anxiously.
"Oh, she will. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if she has some retrograde amnesia. She'll need people to spend time with her and help jog her memory a bit." He breaks the tie of his paper mask with a jerk and tosses it into the trash as he turns to leave. "But don't worry. When it's all said and done she'll probably only forget the day of the accident."
TBC…….