AU: Harry learns that Lieutenant Colonel Sam Carter is not one to be messed with when her internet is broken... We learn something new about Jack in a conversation that does not end well... Harry discovers something about Jack that awakens his demons.
Chapter 5: Sure thing, Sunshine!
Wednesday 10th March 2004 – 11:00am - Cascade House – Harry Durack
Walking up the front steps juggling three bags of fresh fruit and vegetables, I used my elbow to bang on the front window. A few minutes later, Sam opened the door with a huge smile at first, then her face dropped.
"What the hell…?" She cried with a look of… something on her face that made me instantly worry that I was unwelcome.
"Sorry, Sam… just…" I started to explain. She looked at me and shook her head, then moved her hair to reveal a set of ear buds while she was animatedly speaking to someone else. "Oh." I replied quickly then laughed to myself as I walked into the kitchen to unpack the bags. The marvels of modern technology still alluded me.
"You don't have to tell me that I have no internet, young man. I know that I have no internet. For four days in fact." She said with the cool commanding air of a woman who expected action rather than excuses. "I don't goddamn well care if it's the rain's fault. I am paying for a service, and I expect a service. It is your job to provide that service." She berated the person on the other end of the phone with all the authority of a General let alone a Lieutenant Colonel, though never once did she raise her voice. "You said you'd have someone here yesterday. Today is in no way defined as yesterday." She duly informed whoever she was speaking to.
I couldn't hear what the other end of the conversation entailed, but I had an idea. All telco's and internet providers were the same in these parts. "International Date Line? Tell me, son… are you trying to bait me?" She listened for while taking in whatever the young man was saying on the other end of the line. "Hmmm. I see, well there is an issue with your logic. If we were on the other side of the date line, Colorado would be ahead of us so today would be tomorrow, which would be two days after you said you were going to have a technician out to fix this problem." There was no way I could hold my countenance after hearing that. Though I never witnessed the exasperation Jack said he caused her with his stupid questions, I could well imagine how many times she rolled her eyes behind his back in order to avoid a charge of insubordination, not that he would ever charge an officer for such if he was the one baiting them. She looked up at my muffled laughter and smirked, then pulled a shocked face and pointed to her ear.
"What the hell has my age got to do with anything? Just because your 90-year-old grandmother cannot navigate a computer or go online, doesn't mean we all can't!" She bit off at the young man. This time I could not muffle my laughter. If it weren't for Mary, I would never have known about the wonder of the internet. I still didn't really go online despite having my Face on some Book that lived in the 'net'.
"No, I don't need it for Facebook! Why… you little… today! Yes, thank you, Jaxon with an X." She said then checked her watch and wrote down his name and the time of the call, plus the number of minutes she was on the phone. Then promptly hung up.
"Problems?" I asked, to which she scoffed and rolled her eyes.
"So, the rain knocked out the internet… apparently. I called Monday, they said they'd be out yesterday. They didn't turn up, so I called again today, only to have some little twerp try to joke about going back in time by crossing the international date line. Idiot didn't realise that we would go forward in time if we did that. Now they have six hours to get their arses out here and fix the problem otherwise this 'grandmother' might feel compelled to take further action." She said with a grimace as I unpacked the full creamed milk and a loaf of crusty white bread that Sam only bought because John loved it with lashings of butter.
"What?" I asked when she pulled a face at the milk.
"Are you serious? I hate that stuff. Makes me feel like inflicting bodily harm." She complained loudly before checking out the other bags and grabbing one of the tubs of blue jello with an 'ooh yay' sound before plopping down on one of the dining chairs.
"Hey, if I bring you the other stuff, Jack will give away even more of my secrets." I replied with a chuckle. Not that my callsign was a secret. Rumball wasn't even my first callsign, nor my second. Now my first one, well that had been worth hiding since I earned for doing something outrageously stupid.
"I dunno, the story behind 'Rumball' kinda tops it, Harry." She replied with her own sly grin. "Surely you've got a few more pearlers about my boys." She replied. I assumed that 'her boys' were Jack and John. It was good to see her in this frame of mind.
"Well, since you know my name. It's only right and fair that I know yours." I asked as I leaned both hands on the table.
"Oh, no. No. No. I don't think so. Taking that one to my grave." She said with a mouthful of jello and a shake of her head.
"Fine. I'll ask Jack."
She raised her eyebrows, swallowed, and calmly put the tub and her spoon down. "What makes you think Jack knows my callsign?" She challenged just as her phone rang, the name on the phone lighting up as Jack O'Neill. Since it was closer to me, I reached out and grabbed it just before she could. "Harry… dammit! Give me my phone."
"Jack. How the hell are ya!" I greeted my old friend.
"Harry. As well as can be expected." He replied, though I could sense something ominous in his tone of voice.
"Say, you owe me a certain young lady's callsign." I surged on while moving around the dining room to avoid Sam. John's work with her had done wonders. No one would think for a second that she was 90 years of age. The woman could move and dodge better than me, but still wasn't fast enough.
"Do I?" He replied and I could hear the grin in his voice.
"Don't you dare Jack!" Sam cried out making Jack laugh down the line to me.
"Sorry Rumball. Sam's scarier than you are buddy." Jack said to me when he had his countenance back. "Speaking of Sam and scary, I need to talk to her." There was that solemnity in his voice again. Whatever it was he had to say, it wasn't going to be good news.
"Sure thing, Sunshine!" I replied as I looked at Sam, hearing a groan from Jack. She immediately covered her mouth to hold in the giggle but failed. Her sparkling blue eyes seemed brighter for the laughter. No wonder both Jack and John had fallen hard for this woman. She really was one of a kind.
"Harry…" He warned. I grinned and passed over the phone.
"Sunshine! Are you serious, Jack?" She said with obvious glee in her eyes and voice. I swore I could hear another groan from Jack a mile away.
His sign started as Johnny B Goode, which was boring until one day in late 1983, he slid into the mess at Bitburg like Joel Goodsen, though thankfully wearing more than a shirt and underpants with his socks and sunglasses. Instead of singing that damn song, he said 'Here's Johnny!' from The Shining. The combination of his sunglasses and that line ended up with his callsign being changed to 'Sunshine'. I am told that it stuck through the remainder of his piloting career.
It was good seeing Sam smile so much. The last three weeks had seen her improving every day. I first noticed it the day after Major Carter's funeral. They thought I didn't realise at first, until I had a quiet word to John. It was hard to miss just how touchy-feely they were with each other. Even if I had not walked into the house just in time to hear John cry out in a very telling way one day two weeks ago, I could still tell.
"Do you want us to bring anything on Friday?" She asked. Suddenly the look on Sam's face fell and she sat heavily in a dining chair and rested her head on her hand.
"Oh. OK. Umm… well I guess." She replied listlessly to whatever he had told her next. Immediately, I knew that he had cancelled. "Right. I understand. You don't want us there." She replied and nervously chewed her lip, a look of pure grief crossing her face.
"It's OK. Really, I get it. No. John isn't here on school nights anymore. I'll tell him on Thursday." She explained making me wish I could hear Jack's side of the conversation. Instead of standing in the dining, I went through to the kitchen and flicked on the kettle. She would need a cup of coffee after this, and since it was just after 11 o'clock, I figured I could offer her one of the donuts I had added to her groceries as a bonus.
The remainder of the conversation faded into the background as I moved around the kitchen retrieving cups and plates, donuts, and coffee. By the time it was all assembled and I had walked back in, the phone had been hung up and was laying on the table next to her arms that were crossed over themselves, her chin sitting on her fisted hand and her face crestfallen and upset.
"Bad news?" I asked as I placed the coffees and the plate with two donuts down on the table then took my seat opposite her.
"He cancelled."
"Maybe it's a mission."
"No. He said something's come up. If it was a mission, he would have said so." She replied with an unmistakable catch of incredulous anger in her voice. "Besides, if it was a mission, I would understand. He has to go where the brass send him. But…" She didn't finish her thought, instead choosing to bury her head in her folded arms. When she looked up, her face was red, and she was breathing erratically with a look of terror in her blue eyes.
"Hey, Sam." I reached out to comfort her. "Close your eyes and breath." Her eyes fluttered, but she did as I asked. The first breath was shaky and too shallow, but she focused and breathed again. "That's better." I soothed, while rubbing her back.
"Thanks, Harry." She smiled sheepishly, then had a sip of her coffee and grabbed a donut.
"Sam, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you have this roadmap of events in your memory for the next three years?" I asked, because she had been sent back three years beyond her time bubble thing, so it made sense that she would likely remember certain things that happened.
"Some. But a lot has changed. Don't forget that technically, I am dead. Major Sam Carter isn't a part of SG-1 anymore.
"Surely, it wouldn't have changed that much."
"Jack missed several missions. Missions that he was on when I went through this the first time. He went on an extra mission that my SG-1 didn't go on because we were somewhere else at the time." She said then picked up her coffee and took a tentative sip before taking another when it proved cool enough. "Janet is alive." She added.
"Janet?" I asked, knowing my face showed confusion.
"Our base CMO. My Janet died while stabilising a downed soldier. Jack and I were there. He got shot as well and nearly died. This time around, I was dead, he didn't go because you know… and Janet survived." She explained, though my brain picked up on the 'because you know' part and started filling my head with answers.
"Because I know… what?" I asked when she didn't add to her response. Suddenly she looked at me square in the eyes. After a while, she merely grimaced and replied with a non-committal noise.
"Sam. Why didn't Jack go on that mission?" I asked point blank.
"Because Harry, they deployed on Sunday, 8th February. Two days after Sam Carter was killed. Based on what Daniel told me, Jack was still at her house wearing the same BDU he'd worn when she died."
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph." I breathed as I imagined my good friend wearing clothes coated in the blood of a loved one. A sudden influx of faded memories from those days in the jungle when I had seen him covered in my blood as he tried to stop the bleeding on more than one occasion arose bringing with them the dank smell and gritty taste.
The sound of a bullet flying overhead made me cringe and flick my eyes around, unable to move because my head was lashed to the makeshift stretcher. My back hurt from laying on the ground and muscles screamed from the trauma of the crash. I wanted to scream but didn't for fear of being found by the VC. Sweat tingled across my forehead, but I was in too much pain to lift my arm and wipe it away. My chest hurt and it was hard to breathe through the humidity and remnants of Agent Orange, so I wheezed instead.
"Harry!"
"Jack! God, get out of here. Leave me!" I demanded though I couldn't see him. Sounds of tracer fire, rain and buzzing insects filling the void in my mind with a cacophony of different sounds.
"Harry! C'mon Harry. You're OK."
OK? There was no part of this god forsaken land that was OK. Yet, something in the voice was familiar and wrong for this place though I couldn't reconcile it.
"Just go. Please. Save yourself." I begged the voice. Nineteen was too young to die in a place like this. Too young.
"Just relax, Rumball. I've got ya." The voice said just as cool kerchief was placed over my forehead and a straw placed in my mouth, my immediate reaction was to drink. Slowly my eyes cleared as I took a desperate sip, and I found myself looking up into the blue eyes of Samantha Carter. She was kneeled over me. The table was above and to my right, so I had fallen off my chair.
"Hey. Welcome back. I lost you for a moment there." Sam said as her mouth curved into a smile. Taking in a deep breath, I reached for her hand and squeezed both it and my eyes closed as I swallowed heavily to rid the last of the flashback from my mind. Opening my eyes once again, I finally smiled at her.
"Thanks. It's been a while since that happened." I confessed as I rolled and started the process of getting up off the floor. It took a lot longer than the last time I had to do it.
"You were back in Vietnam with Jack." I nodded in the affirmative, "What was the trigger? If you don't mind me asking."
"A memory of blood-stained clothes. Jack spent I don't even know how many days wearing clothes covered in my arterial blood." I replied, then took a heavy breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. "You've clearly done that before. Mary freaked out when it happened in front of her the first year we were together."
"Oh yeah. I used to share a tent with Jack. Some of things he used to dream of had me curled in a ball at the back of the tent. Until I learned how to help him." She replied sadly and I knew she was thinking about his brush off for Friday again. Reaching out my hand, I helped her back to her feet.
Rather than attempt to find more words for the situation between her and Jack, I merely put my arm out to grasp her shoulder and pulled her in for a hug. She came willingly and held on tight. Whatever reason he had, I suspected it would have been necessary to cancel Friday night. I knew in the depths of my heart that it would not have been a decision he made lightly.
Everything would be fine.