AU: Jack is on base gathering everything he thinks he might need... maybe... but not really sure because he has no idea...
Chapter 20: The Ancient Matrix
Monday, 15th March 2004 – 1307 hours – SGC – Colonel O'Neill
The information in my brain was swirling. Zippy zapping really. From here to there and back to here, picking up more information with each pass through the virtual bookshelves or rather binary style Ancient numbers and letters that looked a little like that movie with Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburn that Carter loved to pick holes in, except the columns weren't green on black – thank the… whatever or whoever that wasn't God because, you know, we killed enough of them for that analogy to sound ridiculous. Instead the columns were an eclectic mix of colour consisting of myriad yellows, oranges, whites, and some other colour that I didn't recall seeing since Sara's chosen friends walked down the aisle in their overly ruffled, very 80's style bridesmaids dresses on my wedding day. A colour that my now ex-wife insisted was satin peach and not just another type of orange. Of course, I had teased her about it relentlessly until she pointed out that most men would like green as a colour rather than peridot which made me shut up because my gruff Colonel-esque manliness had no defence to that one.
At first the colours were the cause of the throbbing ache in my fron. Then I worked out that actively suppressing the expansion within my brain was the reason for the pain. Once I let it go, the fronache dulled to barely a nuisance while the information unfurled like a never-ending scroll of parchment filled with golden letters not unlike what the movies assumed Santa's 'Nice' list looked like. It was only when I forcefully tried to stop it all from happening that the skull-splitting agony returned. Moments after that realisation was when the first set of ingredients – for lack of a better term – appeared in my fron right around breakfast time. Since then, it had been a veritable scrolling shopping list that I had taken to mentally ticking off once the item was on my pallet.
Crate of tools – check, shiny green tube thing – check, box of nuts, bolts, and screws – check. I have no idea what use any of this will be, maybe it will be nothing, maybe it will be something. Right now, all I know is that the library unfurling in my brain says we might be able to use that – or part of that – maybe.
"Colonel." The doctor asked as she walked in with Daniel, Charlie and Samantha following her. Since she wasn't asking a question, I didn't bother stopping what I was doing, though at this point I wasn't sure that I could. So instead, I muttered a long-suffering sounding 'don't ask' and continued on my way. Sam's finite line in the proverbial sand of 1500 hours was steadily ticking down and I had every intention of being through the Gate before it ticked over 1501 hours.
"Sam said that last time this happened, he just started doing things without knowing why." Samantha confessed while I rummaged through Siler's carefully arranged wall of doodads as if I weren't in the room.
"Sam said?" Elizabeth asked. Thankfully she was looking at Daniel and so didn't see the look I gave my wife. Elizabeth didn't know about Sam as far as we knew, a point which I conveyed as best I could while my brain was going all kaleidoscopey.
"In her report. From then." Charlie added hastily on her behalf as Samantha shot a silent apology in my direction while I looked through four yellow boxes finding something that looked possibly useful in the last one.
"It's a good sign, though - hopefully it means we're on the right track." Daniel added to the conversation, keeping things moving along rather than having the conversation stall on the 'Sam said' part that we didn't want to explain to our resident outsider.
"Jack?" Samantha asked, her voice pleading me to tell her what on Earth I was doing making me wonder why I didn't just smuggle Carter onto the base because she had been here and done this. She would be helping rather than asking me to explain what I had no hope of understanding despite the phantasmagoria of knowledge going on my brain – and damn did I just use a six-syllable word? To myself?
"I don't know, Samantha!" I half-yelled at my wife as I dropped the yellow crate of whatevers on the pallet and rubbed my forefron when a lance of pain ricocheted from front to back signalling that focusing enough to speak English was becoming a problem. Checking off the mental list in my brain, I realised I needed a form of power. "Grab a naquadah generator, will ya?" I asked Samantha before walking away intent on scouring another storeroom for more bits and bobs.
In the next room, I found cables, conductors, magnets, and a few spare modulator demodulators – or modems – that the Air Force just liked to keep in the event that one of the many internet boxes on base died or we were invaded by an evil Go'auld and an Ancient brain-fried Colonel needed them to modulate the power from a shiny green tube thing to something else that I still had no idea about. Besides the electronic things, I found radios and hazmat suits that we needed because… reasons unbeknownst to me, but hey, let's not argue with the light show! The thick plastic and metal cases were what I had actually been looking for to carry things rather than trying to move it all unpackaged. If the FRED hadn't needed maintenance that I simply did not have time to do, I'd have just stolen it instead. Then again, if Hammond did come back, and I survived, I would have to explain why the SGC's only mass transportation unit was taken on what I knew would be a one-way trip for any of this equipment. While I didn't really know what it was for – yet – I had this feeling that it would all end up as junk after the fact. Grabbing the pallet jack, I loaded it up with as many of the empty crates and boxes that I could find - though none of them would fit my shiny tube – and wheeled them into the other room to find Daniel, Charlie and Doctor Weir still standing there while my wife was strangely absent. Maybe she had gone to get the generator.
"Pack this up for me, will ya?" I asked, then made for one of the secondary armouries, which just happened to be a few doors down, intent on stealing the case from a bazooka for my shiny tube. Swiping my card, I walked in and opened the first box I found and proceeded to unload its contents.
"Sir?" Rodriguez said as she walked into the room.
"I need this." I stated, not even looking in her direction.
"The weapon or the box, Sir?" She asked making me look up at her with a what-the-hell-do-you-think look on my face. She chuckled and pointed to another crate. "That one is already empty, Sir."
"Oh, eude, putego." I replied, receiving a confused look in return.
"You're welcome, Sir. At least I think so." She replied as she walked over and the dragged the six-foot case off the shelf. Taking the case handle, I made my way back to the storeroom and placed it on the ground then motioned for Daniel to put my tube in the box. Noting he had a small box still empty; I closed it up to take with me.
"Jack." I looked at him reading his silent question – are you ok? – what could I say to that?
"A bit cruvus, a little fronache." I replied, then turned made my way to the elevators knowing that I would find an array of tools more suited to fine electronic work in the science labs.
Coming out onto level 19 and heading straight for Felger's lab, I walked in to find the owner of the lab talking to my wife. Well talking wasn't the right word, fawning over was more accurate. Then again, he had been the same with Sam.
"Colonel?" He said and straightened up, though didn't stand.
Placing my empty case on his lab desk, I opened it and turned to his shelves. "I need this." I informed him as I liberated his case of micro screwdrivers and an anti-static mat.
"Err, why?" He challenged with his funny little laugh.
"Don't know, but it'll come to me." I replied as I dumped my ill-gotten gains in to the box and made my way over to Chloe's workstation to see what she had. Grabbing three soldering irons, six coils of solder, an industrial hot melt glue gun and several boxes of glue sticks. All that went in the box. Just as I was going to close my box up, I noted that Felger had out one of those little electrical current testing doodads – a multimeter my almost fried brain informed me. Perfect. For what? I didn't know, but 'eh!'. Reaching out, I snagged it and started coiling the cables up around it.
"Hey!" He complained and tried to liberate it from my possession, though without much success.
"Jack?" Samantha called, but I ignored her because I was losing it. I had less than two hours before we had to be through the gate. She placed her hand on my shoulder, but I shook it off, perhaps a little more harshly than I should have. "Jack! Dammit stop!" She raised her voice in the same way she did when Grace wasn't behaving, and wrapped her fingers around my arm pulling me to a stop before I could grab a small container of sciency looking things from the lab shelves.
"I can't, Sam I have…" I yelled back but was stopped by a sharp spear of pain travelling through my head causing me to bury my fingers into my temples. I was losing the race. Soon there would be so little left that I would never get through it all. Our Ancient powered interlude this morning seemed to have unlocked things more so than what they already were.
"Jack, what can I do?" She pleaded, her hands finding their way to my face. Wrapping my hands around hers, I pulled them away as the pain receded leaving me with more colours, more information, a longer shopping list and less time.
"Get out of my illac!" I ground out while bracing myself for the inevitable pain despite one of my words not being English, and tried to pull away, but she held on tight.
"No!" She yelled as if she understood. "I will not get out of your way!" Her hands had made their way back to grip onto my arms while I stood looking at her realising that I was losing her as well as my mind. Before I knew it, her lips were on mine and then gone again. In that moment, she gave me my consciousness back, so I dipped my head and kissed her again, revelling in the loving feel of her lips. Sadly, I could not stay in that place of love and beauty, so I pulled back and cradled her face in my hands.
"Sam, I have to do this. Before I can't." I replied dejectedly as the colour exploded in my mind once more, forcing me to turn and resume opening the cupboards grabbing various things then loading it all into the crate I had with me. Giving her my best 'I'm sorry' look, I walked out. Five minutes later, I was back in the storage area even though I had stopped by the MALP storage rooms on the way for some electrical conduit.
"Jack, you want us to get this stuff mobilised?" Charlie asked. All I could do was nod my agreement. Teal'c immediately picked up several crates while Daniel manoeuvred the trolley, both heading to the elevator leaving just Charlie and I to carry down the remaining boxes. I could still talk but decided to save the few precious words I had left for when I really needed them. When I realised that Charlie had not moved, I looked up at him in find a very sombre looking face staring at me.
"I wish I could've done it. I owe you more than I can ever repay, Jack." He said with heightened emotion. Rather than offer him platitudes in the form of words that wouldn't help him feel better, I reached into my pocket and drew out a set of silver oak leaves – my old ones since I had not been able to present them to Sam before she died – then prompted for him to open his hand. Placing them there, I gave them one last look wondering if the ones the Lieutenant Colonel had been presented in her timeline were mine or if things were already strained by that stage, then closed his fingers around them. A clear enough message. He had earned his rank back as far as I was concerned, though I didn't have the ability to tell Hammond anymore because he wasn't here. Charlie merely looked at me, nodded, then stood tall with an honest to God look of pride on his face and saluted. After returning his salute, I clapped him on the shoulder and somehow ended up in a hug – a very masculine hug, of course. Pulling back, I motioned for him to get moving. Once we had everything in the gate room, that left us just under an hour to gear up and dial out to Bra'tac's location.
Twenty minutes later, we were standing in the Gate room ready to go. The doctor came in and made what I thought was a joke about not having the kitchen sink, though I chose not to enunciate that since those were wasted words in my current state.
"Dial it up, Walter." She called out.
"Yes, ma'am… Sorry, Elizabeth." He said, then corrected when she pulled a face. As the blue washed over the room and SGC staff started walking the multitude of crates through the Gate, I was left standing at the foot of the ramp. Samantha standing in front of me with tears streaming down her face.
"Good bye, Jack." She sobbed and scrunched up her face much like she had five years ago when we hugged in her room before the stationary cupboard event. Pushing the pending pain aside, determined to use what were probably going to be my final English spoken words for her, I reached out and tangled our fingers of one hand together.
"No. See you later. Mei angelus." I replied, running my other hand through her hair, and drawing her lips to mine. Our kiss was much like it had been when I said good bye five years ago, only this time I was him. When I pulled back, she was audibly crying.
"My God, you're him. You're my Jack." She choked out and coughed, covering her mouth as another flurry of tears rushed down her face. "Four months, mister. Four. Don't make me wait a day longer." She said with a half attempted laugh that turned to more tears. Rather than offer empty promises, because I knew that those four months relied heavily on what was happening here rather than what Sam said had happened in her timeline, I smiled and replied with the best response I had to give.
"Yeah, sure you betcha." Then backed up and turned around, walking through the blue portal hoping it wasn't the last time I would see her.