AU: That fateful mission...
Chapter 6: Well, this sucks!
Thursday, 11th March 2004 – P3X-439 – Colonel Jack O'Neill
The shots from the gliders were getting closer sending shards of stone and sprays of dirt flying in all directions. Plan A of getting the repository out of the wall didn't work and Daniel didn't want me to blow it up which brought Plan B to grinding halt. With that glider coming back around for another go at us, we were fast running out of options.
"Ah crap! Alright then, what…" I was about to ask what our Plan C was, but my words were interrupted when Daniel made a break for the wall, "No, no, no, no, no!" I yelled, grabbing him by his tac vest and shoving him hard away from the device until he hit the opposite wall.
"Jack, somebody has to do it. The answer is in there!" He insisted while jabbing his finger in the direction of a device so powerful it could overwrite a person's brain. "If we don't find the Lost City we're as good as dead. Let me do it." He pleaded. It was a viable option and the only one left to us, but it had one major flaw.
"And who does the translating when you go Ancient?" I demanded from my best friend, the man who had taught me all I knew about the language. We needed him to decipher what was being said, just like last time. As the glider swept in again, we found ourselves cowering under the paltry cover of our arms as if they would prevent our deaths if these ruins fell on us. "In fact, you're the one person who can do it." I barked, referring to his innate ability to pick any language after hearing it spoken. Even now the memory of finding him in the catacombs with a young Sha're conversing in her language made me smile. I was about to step up and take the download when Charlie voiced his plan.
"I could do it." Charlie argued from beside us. Looking at Daniel, I saw him shrug and turn to Charlie.
"Are you sure?" I asked, "It's probably a one-way trip this time." I warned him, wanting to be certain that he knew what he was in for. He nodded and looked at me.
"I owe it to you, Sir. I owe it to Samantha and Grace." He confessed and I could see in his eyes that this was to be his redemption. An act of sacrifice to make up for his betrayal on the other side. Without further words, he stood up and walked to the shiny black outstretched arms. Standing in front of it, he gave us one last look, then turned and took one final step that would bring him in range.
We all waited for the arms to reach out, but they didn't. Another glider swept overhead taking pot shots at us just as several Jaffa disembarked from Tel'tak's down the hill and start making their way up the incline.
We were out of time.
"Jack!" Daniel yelled again. "I can do it. It will work for me." He yelled. I knew that. He had been Ascended for almost a year, but he was also the only one of us who couldn't do it. In a last-ditch decision, I threw my hat at Daniel and hauled Charlie back from the wall then stood in his place. The black arms immediately lanced out to engulf my entire head. Just like last time, I had no hope of getting out before the device released me.
"No! Jack!" Charlie yelled. I could feel his hands gripping the back of my tac vest as the bright array of lights filled my consciousness. "Think of Grace and Sam!"
I was thinking of them until I couldn't anymore. I knew that if Anubis got a hold of this knowledge, Grace and Sam would become slaves or worse – statistics – assuming we retained the ability to record those in servitude. I couldn't let that happen. I loved them too much. I had already lost two Sam's in my life; I couldn't lose another one. And thought of losing Grace – my angel – my daughter, well that didn't even bear thinking. I barely survived losing Charlie. I wouldn't survive losing Grace.
The lights were bright. A myriad of colour. I couldn't have closed my eyes if I wanted to. They were beautiful and terrifying at the same time. I could feel the knowledge flowing, my brain expanding on a cellular level – not physically getting bigger – rather the knowledge unlocked areas I had not used since the last time and I realised that Thor had not removed the Ancient library from my mind four years ago, he had merely put a mind block in place. It was all there from before. This machine had opened the trove and was adding more as if it were re-shelving a cart full of books into the walled recesses lining the knowledge centre of my brain.
The lights reminded me of the Aurora Borealis except it was in a full rainbow instead of only greens and blues. Within the whorl of colour were clusters of words in languages I didn't yet understand, and some that I did. There was a cartoon movie that Gracie had discovered and loved to watch where the spirits lived within the northern lights. Bears and fish. People and ice. I think I shivered at the thought of ice, but I couldn't recall why. The swirling oranges and yellows, pinks and greens, blues and whites reminded me of the story that changed a man into a bear to teach him a lesson.
But what was my lesson to be this time?
I did not even register that it had all stopped until a shower of dirt and rubble covered my back as I almost hit the ground on the way to the gate – Charlie on one side and Teal'c on the other with Daniel taking point. There were airmen at the gate, it was open waiting for us when we were forced to the ground. The cacophony of weapons, shouting voices and gliders acting as a background composition in the theatre of war interspersed with flying dirt, rocks and other debris signalled danger so loudly that I forced myself to push the mirage of colour away so that I could focus on the now.
Blue sky. Blue eyes. A golden face. "Get up, Sir!" She demanded, fire in her eyes and command in her tone dressed to fight and kill like any other mission.
"Sam!" I cried out, looking frantically for my Major, but she was gone.
"Jack, Jack, you OK?" Daniel yelled in my face making me realise that my concentration had once again flagged. All I could see was the cloudless sky before Daniel and Charlie crouched over me. No blue eyes, no golden-haired angel.
"What's going on?" I asked because I didn't remember how I got here. I knew my memory of events would eventfully return. I knew because I recognised the people, the gate and that the blue of the wormhole always reminded me of Sam's eyes. Both Sam's. And Samantha.
All three of them.
A sudden jerk of my body brought me back as I was hauled to my feet by Daniel and Charlie. Teal'c behind us taking shots at what I suspect might have been the Jaffa that I recalled seeing just before the explosion of colour. They must be close by now. An airman is shouting for us to move as we made it to the broken stone steps leading to the Gate's dais.
"We're right behind you Sir! Go." When I didn't move immediately, he yelled 'Go!' a second time helping me recognise him as Lieutenant Colonel Reynolds and that he had taken over command of the mission. As I stepped through the gate, the colours reignited and exploded behind my eyes as if I still had my head in the clutches of the repository. Looking around, I could see myself in a trillion tiny little pieces, each cell, each atom yet somehow, I had an outline. Daniel, Teal'c and Charlie were also with me as were the other SG members who were on the planet. We were interspersed within each other but somehow, I could still make out each individual as if I were looking at them whole.
I could see the path home in slow motion, one constellation at a time in the dialling order. Each star, each planet on the molecular level and I smiled thinking how much my Sam would have loved to see things this way. She would have marvelled at the sheer complex simplicity of the universe just as she marvelled at the contained wormhole that first time.
Adorable.
"Sam." I said to myself because she was not here.
"Yes, Jack?" Her voice floated through my disapparated mind as if she were standing right by me. When her face appeared full and wonderful, with a light glow surrounding her, I felt my molecules smile. Could molecules smile? Sam would know.
"I did it again." I said to her with sadness in my voice because I knew that although I would likely see her again after my brain went nuclear, that meant that Samantha and Grace would be left behind. The warm feel of her ascended hands cupping my face was divine making me almost cry at her touch.
"Call me, Jack."
"Call you?" I was confused, how could I call her? She smiled as if she knew what I was thinking. I should not have been surprised; she always knew what I was thinking. It was why we were so perfect together, on and off the field. She was the other half of my soul.
"Though the river has branched, its tributaries are part of the one." She said cryptically, but in this place, with this expanded mind, I knew what she was saying. Lieutenant Colonel Sam Carter is Major Samantha Carter is also Samantha. They were three branches of the same river in time. "She will help you now just as I helped you then." With one last smile, she vanished, and my journey came to an end.
The sound of boots on the metal grating of the embarkation ramp brought me out of the zone I had transcended to within the wormhole.
"What happened?" The General asked as I took my first step down the ramp. There was no point sugar coating the events.
"Didn't quite go to plan Sir." I responded, wondering if me sticking my head in the wall would still be classed as Plan C, or if technically it was Plan D because Plan C was for Charlie to be the goat this time.
Despite having my wits somewhat about me, I could see – or rather sense on the cosmic scale – the movement of the individual atoms that made up every particle of concrete, metal, glass, person, and fabric in the room. If each movement had a discernible sound, it would have been deafening. Thankfully, there was no soundtrack.
"We have to get him to the infirmary." Captain Obvious stated loudly for everyone in the Gate room and beyond to hear. Gotta love Daniel sometimes.
"I did it again." I repeated my words spoken to cosmic Sam for the General's benefit as I walked past him, not even bothering with the protocol and military niceties that I should afford a man of his station.
We all knew that there was no solution this time. We hadn't heard from the Asgard in nearly a year, not since Thor turned up to take Loki back into custody and save my clone from a painful death. What I had done was earn myself a life sentence. A very short one. Hopefully I could find whatever it was that we needed to stop Anubis before my use by date arrived. By my calculation, I had a week may be less.
At some point, I handed my weapons and tac vest off before stalking towards the infirmary to see Janet only for her to tell me there was nothing she could do. At the last minute, I turned down the corridor that would take me through to the control room entrance and up into the briefing room where I knew the rest of my team were.
"Jack!" Charlie yelled, the sound of his combat boots hitting the concrete echoing down the corridor.
Almost all my team.
"Charlie." I responded but didn't bother to stop making my way up the steps into the control room, ignoring Walter and Simmons then hitting the metal staircase taking two steps at a time. I could hear Daniel prattling about what was going to happen. It shouldn't have made me mad, but it did. It was as if they had written me off already. As soon as I entered the room, they all stopped talking.
"What?" I asked, as calmly as a dead man walking could, "Meet my maker? Pay the piper? Reach the pearly gates? Start pushing up daisies here and there?" The stunned looks on their faces spoke volumes. They knew there was nothing they could do but wait. Wait for the crazy. Wait for strange words. Wait for the end.
"You should be in the infirmary." Hammond pointed out.
"Why?" I asked, once again not affording him a Sir or General. "We all know exactly what's gonna happen. In a few days I start speaking some strange language. A few days after that I start doing things beyond my control, and a few days after that, it's goodnight my someone, goodnight." That was stretching things because I could already feel the library expanding. By this time next week, I'd be a wordless husk.
I could see Daniel agreeing with me silently while Charlie merely stared into a void and Teal'c stood with a solemn look on his face. I wondered then if Sam had still been alive, what she would be doing right now. Before anyone else thought to interject their two cents worth, I looked at the General.
"So, with your permission Sir, I'd like to take the weekend to get some personal things together. Spend time with my family." I requested. There was no way I was spending the rest of the day in the infirmary beyond my standard post-mission checks.
"Permission granted." The General replied with a gravity in his voice that spoke volumes.
"Thank you, Sir." I replied, then turned to walk down the stairs determined to get the rest of the necessities out of the way so that I could go and see my girls.