AU: The battle is nigh... Jack commands his army of light from the Ancient chair... Daniel realises his friend may never leave this place...
Chapter 24: Aveo, Amacus
Friday, 19th March 2004 – 0730 hours New Zealand Daylight Time – Ancient Outpost during the attack – Colonel Jack O'Neill
The chair accepted me as readily as the one on Taonas had, though then, I did not know how to use it. It was a weapon, a tool, a friend. With it, I can create life, take life, control the outpost, heal an ailing person or destroy an enemy in orbit. Beneath this place is a cavern deep in the ice. It is more than an outpost, but less than a city. A fortress. An infirmary. A place built to protect and preserve life. A secret laboratory for scientific pursuits of the biological and genetic kind. She will be safe here until she is needed. I gave her more time, all I could give to see her though. I would see her once again… just in time.
"Jack!" The sudden cry forces me to leave the exploration for another time. There will be no time. With a thought, I feel the cavern below come alive. I feel the vibrations through the chair and within my blood. The fortress is speaking to me, seeking orders. Instinctively, my fingers press into the gel pads on the hand rests opening several vents in the floor.
An outpouring of light and power ascends from the depths.
Golden lumus, marching into battle. A veritable army. Grace would call them fireflies. Sam would call them light emitting drones. Grace. Sam. The words and names that flittered through my mind made some kind of abstract sense without me having any clue what they truly meant. I could see everything and nothing. Daniel is yelling… words, Charlie is shooting, and Teal'c blasting. There are shiny black soldiers – Kull – advancing and falling, X-302's dogfighting over the glacius. Men I knew but didn't remember. Golden glow bugs taking down the creatures responsible for taking my Sam from me. Vengeance for her death is all I can think of for a moment.
Grace!
Her beautiful face pops into my fron with a smile so bright, so O'Neill yet so Carter, that I almost falter in my task, the hesitation is enough to let the daemonus in. This dimidium et dimidium creature of pure evil. Part Ascended, part serpens.
"You will fail, this world is mine! Bow to your God Anubis!" The creature demanded directly into my mind rather than something as prosaic as a hologram.
"Nullus! Terra estus liberia!" I heard myself screaming back at the shadow fiend without words, my golden saviours swarming in the recesses of my mind.
Inside and outside.
Here and beyond.
I can see them without seeing them. Guiding them with nothing but thought. Instructing them. Directing them. They are soldiers and I am their commander. Like a sea of golden sunlight, they swarm the Kull Warriors, death gliders and Tel'tak's, bringing them out of the sky as piles of smoking wreckage and fire before coming together as a cloud of righteous fury. Like sunrise over a cloudless sky of blue. Seeking justice for the loss of Abydos. For Carter.
Report! They answer in the form of images as they burst from the atmosphere.
Prometheus is on a collision course, so I urge my minions faster… Anubis fires on our flag ship. I can sense that her shields failing. Sparks of energy within.
GEORGE!
Think faster. Celerius. My golden birds overtake Prometheus and slam through our attackers shields then into the hull of the Ha'tak. The creature screams and shields itself. The explosions from orbit echoing through my fron would make this face smile if it remembered how. Carter would be proud.
Carter.
I picture her face. Golden hair, bright smiles, blue eyes. Heaven. She blew up a sun, I blew up an armada. Now I am tired. Time to go. I can feel my eyes closing, happy in the knowledge that she will live on with John.
"Colonel! C'mon Sir. Wake up!" A man says. The part of this consciousness that once belonged within this vessel recognises him. So tired. "Jack, it's time to go, we are safe. Samantha and Grace are waiting." He said earnestly. Grace. Samantha. Two faces swam in the vessel's mind, around them a trail of giggles and laughter. Happiness. I try to make this vessel speak.
"Gratia. Samia?" The thick words are not this body's language. It is a struggle to keep these eyes open. Golden faces still dancing in this one's mind. My girls, mei angelus. The sudden realisation sparks a memory from within, one of loss replaced with redemption.
"That is Ancient for Grace and Sam, Charlie." Another man said, one wearing spectaculus.
"Yeah, I got that. Colonel! Do not make me tell them that their father and husband is not coming home." The man demanded, pressing his lips together. I want to reach out for him, touch him, remember him, but I couldn't. Eyes heavy – lights dimming – the images, ideas and knowledge flashing through this mind were too much, too fast, too big. Sensory overload. No space left. They are speaking words I do not understand. Father. Husband. Home. Tempus est ire.
"Jack!" The man said more forcefully, hands grasping shaking this body. The consciousness that belonged here once spoke weakly. Charlie! Recognition sparked and strength returned. Slowly lifting a hand to the familiar face. I knew this man from another life. Multiple other lives. Somehow, two of these lives stood out more so than the others. Amacus. Memories of him in a place of sand, surrounded by grey walls, fields of grass and unfamiliar buildings, eyes flashing, dying at the Astria Porta, fighting by my side as we were overrun by the enemy, his words - 'you and Sam, you never had a thing in your world?'.
"Charlus?" The vessel spoke, again not in words this body would normally use. He smiled. My eyes were heavy, something was pulling me away, telling me it was time. My head lolled to the side. The man forced me to look back at him.
"Yes Sir. Charlus. Charlie." He responded with a smile. "Gratia et Samia. They need you, Sir." He said with a smile as my heavy hand fell from his face. Need. Etium. They need me to not abiceerum. The man behind him. A name flittered through my mind – Dan'el – looked at him like he said something cruvus. Another man… T. Fratre armis.
"Comdo a-a-asordo. Dormata." I forced the words out tiredly. The trio looked behind them at the chamber. "Dormata." I muttered again just as the one the vessel knew as Teal'c hauled this form out of the chair and over to the chamber. So tired, but not too tired to make one last thing work. Placing the vessel's hand on the control pad, I stared at the faces of three men who I knew as friends but could not remember. "Aveo amacus. Da amica mea Gratia et Samia." I said as I activated the chamber with my last bit of strength.
~ ~ J 💞 S ~ ~
Friday, 19th March 2004 – Ancient Outpost after the attack – Doctor Daniel Jackson
"Goodbye." I translated. I thought the other word was friend, but I wasn't sure.
"What was the other part? The bit about Grace and Sam." Charlie asked, but I was too lost in my own mind to answer him. Jack was gone. He wasn't supposed to be gone. That was my thing.
"Daniel, what did he say?" Charlie asked frantically. The sound of his voice snapped me out of my internalised struggles.
"Umm…" I faltered, God what did he say? Squeezing my eyes closed to remember. "D'amica me Gratia et Samia." I muttered what I could remember. "Grace and Sam."
"Yeah, I worked out that much." Kawalsky chided. "What about Grace and Sam? What about his creation in that tank? What about…" He kept talking and talking until I held up my hand for silence. My brain wasn't working, which was a new and unusual occurrence for me. The translation of those words were there, I could feel them, but I couldn't make my brain do the work to reverse translate from Ancient to Latin to English.
"Daniel!"
"What! I don't know. Dammit! It sounded like you had an understanding talking to him. You tell me what he said!" I yelled back at him. Our emotions were running high after witnessing Jack put himself into an endless sleep, despite us knowing it was going to happen. The fact that it was a sleep he'd probably never come out of if we didn't find Thor.
"Oh, for God's sake Daniel. I haven't studied Latin since my days in Sunday school. Knowing a variation of my name and working out that Gratia et Samia means Grace and Sam doesn't mean I am fluent in God damned Latin!" He bellowed; his face red with anger much like it had been when he met Teal'c the first time he came through the mirror years ago.
"It wasn't Latin." I muttered. "Just similar."
"This is not helping Daniel Jackson." Teal'c spoke quietly, his words had a sheen of emotion attached to them unlike I had ever heard from him before. "O'Neill requires our help, not our anger." He added. He was right. Closing my eyes and settling my breathing, I ran the words Jack said through my mind over and over. D'amica me Gratia et Samia. Grace and Sam. D'amica me... Da amica… Amica is love. Me… no, mea… my… Da amica mea…
"Oh no." I whispered and turned to face Teal'c and Charlie. "Da amica mea Gratia et Samia. Give my love to Grace and Sam." I choked out. "He's not expecting to come out of this." Sam had convinced everyone that Thor would come. Had she told him something else? She said four months and we all believed her, trusted her. A flash of pain lanced through my chest, and I immediately wanted to destroy the body that Jack had made for her, but I knew I'd never get in there.
"Dammit Colonel!" Charlie cursed, throwing his well-worn cap to the ground, then walking over to a wall and leaning his back against it with his head in his hands.
I stood looking between my best friend frozen in the sleeping chamber and the man who – in less than two months – had become as ingrained within SG-1 as Sam had ever been. We still missed her – the real her – but we knew she was being cared for wherever she was – well according to Grace – and then there was Samantha. The alternate Samantha who had come through the mirror with Charlie and Grace. The woman who had managed to pull Jack back from the brink of self-inflicted insanity and depression when he was unable to let our Sam go. As for the Lieutenant Colonel, there was no love lost between us. The version of Sam Carter who shunned us until Jack's clone brought her out of the darkness. It never failed to amaze me how Jack and Sam managed to keep each other on the straight and narrow. Little good it did. I wondered if John knew about her promises. I doubted it. She probably lied to him as well. Suddenly, I had no issues keeping Jack's creation a secret. She could leave this world for all I cared. But to reveal her presence would put Jack in danger, so I buried those thoughts and locked them away.
"What do I tell her? God…" Charlie murmured, his breath out was heavy and full of angst and despair. I did not envy the man who had to tell Samantha that her husband was gone for a second time in their lives. He had managed to get through to Jack that dying in that chair was not an option. Not that having him frozen was any better. I guessed at least the chamber showed he was alive, but for how long? Unfortunately, I did not see how we could help him this time. He could be here for years. Hammond was gone, replaced by Doctor Elizabeth Weir, a civilian pawn in the employ of Vice President Kinsey. I only hoped that her reputation in dealing with difficult self-serving people preceded itself. We would need the Gate and a miracle to get a hold of the Asgard. The Lieutenant Colonel had everyone fooled into believing that all we had to do was sit and wait. After hearing Jack's words, I was no longer one of them.
"Daniel Jackson, I believe Major Kawalsky is in need of our assistance." Teal'c said, his eyes fixed on the frozen form of our commander and friend. No more. Now Charlie was our CO. It felt wrong to think of him that way, but in Jack's absence, that is what he had become.
"Yeah." I responded listlessly before walking over to the man who had slid down the wall to a semi-crouched position. I placed my hand on his shoulder. "Charlie, c'mon. We should go."
"No." He shook his head vehemently, "We can't leave him here. We have to do something now. You said you were friends with the Asgard here, that they helped him last time. That Sam of yours said they would help this time." He stated.
"Yeah well… we'll see." I replied tersely, letting of all the pent-up frustration from my encounters with that woman smile through.
"What the hell does that mean?" He bit off. I shrugged and tried to brush him off, but he merely stared me down from his position on the ground with the same expression I got used to seeing from him on the first Abydos mission. Exasperation, incredulity, and something else I couldn't define.
In the end, I fell back to the stark truth rather than share my thoughts and feelings on the Lieutenant Colonel's promises. "The problem is with the Gate being shut down; I don't know how to get a message to them. We've always gone to Cimmeria. We can't do that this time."
"We have to try, Daniel. I don't want to have to tell Samantha that he's gone. I can't do that to her. I can't see the pain on her face when she realises that he's not coming back. Once was enough. It nearly killed her last time. If it wasn't for him, she wouldn't be here." He confessed, his eyes falling on Jack's sleeping form.
"What do you mean?"
He scoffed and looked up at me, "It means exactly what you think it means."
"Are you saying she tried to kill herself! But I thought you guys had something for a while there."
He laughed mirthlessly, "How do you think that something started, Daniel?" He asked, but my blank stare must have told him that Jack had not elaborated. "She called me in tears about a week after we got back. I was driving home. Luckily, I was within a few minutes of their house. She said goodbye over the phone, then I heard the unmistakable sound of a round being loaded." He confessed.
"Oh my… she was really going to…"
"Yeah, if I had been even one minute later, I – I would have been on clean up duty." He interrupted with a whisper. "Instead, she cried on me as I disarmed her, and then… well let's just say it wasn't the first time I had to… look I'm not proud of what I let happen. But I… I fell in love with her, and things progressed, or so I believed." He looked down at his shaking hands. "When she discovered she was pregnant, it stopped. I didn't know until a week before we came through that Grace was his." Charlie said motioning to Jack. I felt for him. I had been in the very same position with Jack on the night of Sam's funeral. Comforting a friend while disarming him moments after he caressed the side of his head with a loaded pistol. The memory sent shivers rolling through my body.
I did know the part about Samantha ending it with him. Charlie had confessed two days ago while we stood by the barbeque cooking the steaks before the ill-fated conversation that caused the Lieutenant Colonel to storm out of the dining room. Charlie had a few beers under his belt when he apologised to Jack for everything he had done in the other reality. His confession had been full of sorrow laced with hurt and disgust at himself. Jack hadn't held it against him, or her for that matter. They had both been grieving. The story ended with Jack giving Charlie a slap on the back and another beer. He then made us – the remaining SG-1 – promise to look out for her and keep her safe before turning to Charlie and making a joke about not keeping her too safe. It had been the last Jack joke we heard from him.
In part, I felt sorry for the way I had behaved towards the Lieutenant Colonel, but only because it robbed the rest of us the chance to spend as much time with Jack as possible when his demand that I show myself out ended with an angry Janet ignoring me and choosing to take Cassie home meaning I had to get a lift with Teal'c and Charlie back to the base.
Focusing back on the man at my feet, I crouched to his level. "I'll go with you. We will both go with you." I said including Teal'c, "Jack made SG-1 promise to watch out for her and that's what we will do. All of us." I promised. It was the least we could do for our friend, the man who had pulled us together as a team and given us all a second chance to be more than what we could have ever envisaged for ourselves.
A/N: I have used Stargate Fandom for any Ancient words used in the show. For any others, I have used Google to translate English to Latin and then made a change to the word to make it different based on typical differences noted between the two. Still not Daniel Jackson. :(
Dimidium et dimidium = Half and Half
Nullus! Terra est liberia! = No! Earth is free!
Mei angelus = My angels
Spectaculus = Spectacles/glasses
Comdo asordo = Please help
Lumus = Lights
Celerius = Quickly!
Tempus est ire = Time to go
Fratre armis = My brother in arms