AU: John reminisces on the journey... Sam prompts him to talk about his experience and John discovers something unexpected...
A/N: A little happy time for our unconventional couple at the end, but nothing explicit.
We are close to the finale for this instalment. If I were to roll into the next part, it would be almost 100 chapters and posting would not be daily as I still have work to do. I cannot in good conscience do that to my loyal readers. But rest assured, the next part is on its way and will pick up 3 months down the track, closer to when Jack is coming home.
Chapter 37: The Land of 10,000 Lakes
Sunday 21st March 2004 – 1900 hours – Jack's Cabin, Silver Creek, Minnesota
Taking in a deep breath as I sat on the end of my dock leaning back on my hands just watching the orange and pinks of sun set light up the sky over the lake was sublime. My last visit had been when I was still Jack, and this place was still mine. Regardless, I had no intention of allowing the little piece of reality where this cabin belonged to someone else ruin this for me.
The trip had ended up being just over thirty-eight hours when Sam insisted that we stop to sleep at an RV park in Fidelity, Missouri. We just couldn't keep going with the driving rotation without real sleep. In the end we scrapped the I-29 idea over sticking on the I-35 north just so we could get here. The six-hour stopover had not been anywhere near enough, but now that we were finally here, we could sleep. Sam – in her infinite cleverness – had pulled apart both our old inert mobile phones during the four-hour drive from Guymon to Ponca City and used the components to create a scanner to find tracking devices. How she did that kind of stuff on the fly surprised me. She made that MacGyver fellow look like an amateur.
Martin – the sneaky sod – had applied some kind of paint to the edges of the windscreen wipers of the van. On the second vehicle – a late model F-150 – we found the paint along the tops of the side mirrors. The windscreen wipers rode with us in the van through three states, but the mirrors could not come off the F-150 and using aluminium foil made us look like crazy people, so we drove it to the nearest second-hand dealership, parked it up, wiped it down and bought ourselves a decent second-hand extended cab '95 Chevy Silverado with some of the cash we found in Jack's safe. Sam laughed much to the dealer's surprise when she saw that it still bore Connecticut plates from the previous owner meaning she could use her perfectly legitimate Connecticut driver's licence for the registration process before telling him that she was on her way home anyway and it would save her from having to reregister her car once she was there. It had taken less than twenty minutes to process before we were headed north for the final leg of our very long journey.
I had been right about Martin getting someone to the cabin before us, though it hadn't been for the reason I was expecting. Sam and I had searched the place top to bottom multiple times in the two hours since arriving, and found no hint of any bugs, cameras or other covert surveillance equipment. What we did find were stocked cupboards, a fridge full of fresh food, the hot water service up and running, beds recently made and a healthy stock of cut firewood. The temperature range for this time of year was still between 19 degrees and 35 degrees Fahrenheit, so firewood was a must have.
The back door squeaked as it opened and closed prompting me to make a mental note to fix it. Jack would not likely be here before the winter set in, so Sam and I would ensure that the place was squared away for the winter before we left.
"Hey." Sam said as she came up behind me, her hands resting on my head as her fingers ran through its strands.
"Hey." I replied as I tipped my head back a little, simply enjoying her touch.
"Grace is asleep. I think she'll be tired for at least another day." Sam commented then waited, allowing the silence to encompass us both. I had tossed up whether to tell her what I experienced or whether to just let it slide. The problem with that was that Sam knew when I was holding back. She had done so for years. Well, I thought she had which was why I was so surprised that she never knew how much Jack from her timeline loved her. Even if she had nearly married another man, he would never have truly given up. All she would have had to do was turn up on his door step and tell him she wanted more.
"John." She prompted, breaking that silence. Dropping my head backwards, I looked up into her eyes and saw a multitude of questions swimming in their depths.
"You sure you want to know?" I asked truthfully. She looked back at me and slowly nodded. "OK. Just… don't ask me to explain any of it, because…" I left off the end of that sentence when she smiled and moved her hand to my face in silent acceptance. I smiled, then pulled my legs up and swivelled around. Sticking my hand up in her direction, I asked, "Give an old man a hand up, willya?"
She snorted. "Old my ass. Even at your original 52-years, I'm almost double your age." Regardless, she stuck her hand out. Taking it in mine, I also grabbed the dock banister rail, I hauled myself up without putting any pressure on her.
"Timey-wimey weirdness doesn't count." I objected, giving her a friendly nudge with my shoulder. She laughed in the way that I loved.
"Like you can talk, at least I didn't get abducted and probed by aliens." She replied with a giggling snort that made me sound like one of those crazy people. "No timey-wimey nonsense included, so yours doesn't count."
"I did not get probed." I countered with faux indignation, as we walked towards the cabin. "If he did, I'd expect that he'd spring for dinner first." I grumbled about Loki as an afterthought when I remembered that one of the interviewees insisted that he had been. I stopped briefly outside the door wondering how we got onto the topic of non-existent dinner dates and probing when I remembered. "Hey, don't change the subject! We were talking about your timey-wimey fraction of a second thingy not counting."
"It was point eight six seconds, and it does count." She replied as if she had that number memorised in her head. She sighed. "I lived fifty years in that bubble, John. I grew old. I watched Daniel grow old. Teal'c had a slash of white hair…" She motioned along the side of her head just above her ear. "My hair got long, bones and joints got weary. My brain slowed down and couldn't get through the day without an afternoon nap." She confessed while looking at her feet. I opened the door and heard that same squeak.
"You said there were others with you." I prompted for more of the story. It was better than having to explain – try and explain – that I remembered dying.
"Yeah. Vala Mal Dorran. You haven't met her yet. She's a blast. We bonded because we are both former hosts, except she was host to a Goa'uld, a particularly vicious one called Qetesh. The memories she has… God John, they make what Jolinar gave me look like child's play. She was a one-time rival to Ba'al." The mention of that particular name sent a thrum of cold unease through my body as the long-supressed memories threatened to invade. "Oh God, I'm sorry. I forgot…"
"It's OK. Not your fault. How did she break free of the Goa'uld?" I asked since it was rare to hear about hosts surviving.
"There was a rebellion on one of her planet's after a Tok'ra operative incited an uprising. She was captured and tortured for days by the people Qetesh ruled." Sam explained as we took our place side by side on the comfortable old couch in front of the fire. I immediately wrapped my arm around her back and tugged so she rested her head on my shoulder so that I could rest my cheek on her head.
"Nothing like a garden variety rebel uprising to ruin your gilded day." I murmured. She chuckled softly. "Did I like her?" I asked meaning did her Jack like her.
"Everyone likes her. She has a way of endearing herself. Called Jack General Hotpants." She giggled and ducked her head into my shoulder. I laughed with her because I could just imagine the look on the old man's face if someone called him that. "Anyway, the Tok'ra operative felt sorry for Vala…" I snorted thinking about how it was probably the first time – aside from Sel'mak – that a Tok'ra gave a god damn about a human host. For a race who prided themselves on not taking a host involuntarily, they certainly seemed all for separating their hosts from their families.
"Sorry…" I apologised when she gave me a long-suffering look from under her eyelashes. She always did have more understanding and patience for them even before they saved her father. I couldn't help but wonder if that was because of Jolinar or because she was the kind of person who didn't write a whole race of people… aliens… whatever, off because of one or two. Sadly, I was not the same. I looked away and tried to finish my explanation. "…can't help but hate them after…"
"I know." She replied.
"No. I'm not sure you do, Sam. Kanan was… well an asshole plain and simple. He put me in a terrible situation." I huffed a sigh into her hair, "…but all the torture I went through as I result of his actions was nothing compared to watching you get taken over by Jolinar. Watching you not act like you. Sitting beside your bed for days while you stared into nothing. I felt utterly powerless, Sam. There was nothing I could do. Not even my awful jokes brought a smile to your face." I confessed for what I think was the first time ever.
"Hmm." She seemed to agree. "There is one thing I don't understand."
"What is that?"
"How we managed to get off topic. We were going to talk about what happened to you." Sam prompted making me grumble into her hair. I really – and I mean really – did not want to talk about it, but since I was the new and improved 'hey-lets-talk-about-stuff' Jack O'Neill, I knew I didn't really have a leg to stand on. Not since I forcefully made her open up about certain things.
"I am kinda tired." I murmured hoping she would take me up on the idea of snuggling under the heavy duvet.
"You experienced it all, didn't you?" She guessed correctly, her question not veiled or assuming in any way. Certainly not the 'of course, Sir' response I had grown used to from the Carter I had served with before I was introduced to this existence. Still, I sat silent and held her trying to form the right words in my mind when she stood and smiled down at me. "I am rather tired myself." She said, then without saying 'good night', she turned and walked down the hallway towards our shared bedroom in a way that begged me to follow. I knew she wouldn't let up. If I didn't talk tonight, it would be tomorrow.
Getting up, I checked the fire and set the air vent so that it could burn safely throughout the night ensuring the cabin remained warm, then made my way up to the bedroom. Sam was already tucked up in bed. Shedding my jeans and jumper but keeping my shirt, boxers and socks on, I slipped under the covers. She instantly wrapped her arms around me and pressed the length of her body to mine, so I did what had become natural to me and kissed the top of her head.
Closing my eyes, I remembered the disembodied feeling of floating above everything. Seeing the pain on the faces of my friends and family but unable to hear anything. It never occurred to me that being a ghost came with an unerring silence. Then again, I had never been a ghost, nor ever believed in ghosts. It made the visual aspect so much more disconcerting because seeing the animated anguish in hues of clouded grey and white without the soundtrack felt like I was missing something. Yet I hadn't missed a thing. I hadn't missed Cassandra crying, or Sam screaming, Daniel demanding she stop, Charlie holding a defiant Grace back, or Teal'c standing by in a silent support so deafening that I swore I should have heard his solitary tear hit his cheek.
"It was cold. So cold." I murmured into her hair. "Everything felt wrong, and yet so right." I confessed hoping she would not think that I wanted to die. The last thing I wanted to do was leave her just as I didn't want her to leave me. "One minute, I was there… in pain… and then... everything quietened and changed colour. At first, I didn't realise anything different. I kept talking, telling you that we could trust Kennedy."
"When did you realise?" She asked without any hint of misunderstanding in her voice.
"When I couldn't hear the sound of my voice. Then a lightspeed colour-filled slideshow of everything that mattered to me. You and Grace, Samantha, Jack, but mostly you. Us. Then… a cacophonous silence with its own black and white movie, like a Charlie Chaplin reel without the narrative telling me what was happening." I confessed slowly. "She killed those men so easily." I said, then took in a harsh breath still struggling with the concept that three lives were extinguished to save one. The life of an ex-black ops soldier who had taken more than his fair share of lives. Sam leaned up on her elbow and looked down at me.
"Those men kidnapped a three-year-old girl. Pete was a stalker. The doctor would have killed me and cut into my brain if not for you. As for the other one, well he threatened to do some pretty distasteful things to me while you watched. The other two probably weren't any better. Trust me, none of those men were saints." She stated, then placed her hand on my face. "You took lives under orders. You never tortured or threatened to torture."
"I killed children, Sam." She didn't have to know that that number amounted to two and one of them was Charlie.
"Charlie was an accident. The other one was a brainwashed 13-year-old boy after he shot one of your team." She confessed the memory I knew I had never ever told her about. Not even when so drunk I could barely remember the night, had I ever shared that story. The sudden need to be somewhere else consumed my mind. Throwing back the blankets, I made to get out of our bed, but she held me fast refusing to let go.
"John, don't… please." She begged.
"How do you… how… I never told you that, I never…" I huffed and swallowed. It had never made it into a report. Had Cromwell let it slip on that mission before he… no, he had barely spoken to Carter. That I could remember. Pulling me back towards her and throwing the blankets back over; she buried her nose into my neck and held on though I remained rigid unable to reconcile how she knew about that.
"Fifth tortured me with your memories. Jack's memories." She whispered, her fingers and arms tightening as if she were afraid to let go, or afraid that I'd try to run again. Fifth, the human form replicator. The one who we tricked into staying behind.
"Wasn't he the most human one?" I had to ask the question even though the thought of referring to a machine as human grated on my sensibilities. I had had the same issue with Harlen's creations of us, but at least they were us.
"Yes. But it happened years later in my time. We taught him betrayal. Fifth spent years reliving that betrayal until it consumed him, introducing him to the concepts of cruelty and revenge. Behaviours he chose to share with me. After First delved into your memories, he shared them with the others. He chose the worst of yours and Teal'c's memories as well as the death of my mother and played them on a loop for hours." She confessed.
"Iraq?" I asked, though I didn't really want to know.
"Yes."
"Fuck." I let out with a broken sob. I had never told anyone what they did. The near drowning, the car battery hooked up to probes inserted under my fingernails, the other things I dare not think about. Sam held me tighter as I struggled with the idea that she knew; that she had seen the darkness within my soul and still decided I was worth her time, her love.
"Even with your past, you are worth so much to so many. We are more than the sum of our memories. You taught me that." Her voice broke and I felt her tears. "When I wanted nothing more than to die alone, riddled with the memories of losing the one person in my life that made everything better…" Another sob escaped as her arms tightened, "It was you, John. Jack tried, but I burned him until he gave me what I thought I wanted, but you didn't. You brought out into the light. And I love you more for it." Her confession speared its way directly into my heart. She loved me. Despite everything. She loved me.
"I love you too." I replied. She pulled her head up and smiled, then leaned in to kiss me.
"Show me." She requested then traced her lips along my cheek to my ear. "Please." I smiled and slowly rolled so she was on her back allowing me to hover above. The best thing that could have happened to me in two lifetimes. I was tired, so was she, but that did not stop me from kissing her. Showing her. It would have to do because I didn't think I had anything else in me tonight.
"Raincheck." I said when I pulled back earning myself a sulking moan. Despite being tired, my lower half – as always – did not receive the memo from my brain. Her hands moved from my lower back to inside my boxers in invitation. "Sam…" I tried again when I suddenly felt tingly and warm, like I had that night with Samantha and… but Jack wasn't here and… my eyes closed as my temperature rose and heart started racing. Was I sick? When I opened my eyes, everything had a golden tinge to it.
"Yes. Oh, yes please." Sam gasped, then lifted her lips to mine while her hands grappled at my clothes rapidly. The heat in my veins thrummed, her scent became intoxicating. Our naquadah buzzed louder and I couldn't think anymore. "It tingles, your skin. I feel it inside and outside. Oh, God, John. Please." She begged while she fought with her nightdress. When my warm skin touched hers, any thoughts of sleeping disappeared as I groaned into her questing mouth.
It was him. I could feel him within me. The golden halo surrounding me intensified just like last time, though I didn't understand how. Nor did I care. Dancing my lips along her jaw line, I bit gently on her ear as we joined together pulling a shaking sigh from her that seemed to travel through her entire body. It was sublime. Letting him take over enabled me to control things. The desire to bring her to completion manifested with a tingly warmth directed to where she needed it with every gentle thrust until she rolled over the edge with a long-drawn-out moan that seemed to last for several minutes.
"Good?" I asked, noticing the depth of my voice sounded more like Jack than myself. She sighed in an approximation of an affirmative and lifted her hips encouraging me to keep going. Running my hand down her side to her knee, I hooked her leg up over my hip and pressed deep drawing another cry of satisfaction and a murmur of a 'yes' from her lips while her hands gripped and kneaded my lower back. Then the spirit of Samantha's husband sent a surge of heightened sensitivity and a frenzied burst of speed through my body before releasing his hold when I cried out her name, my mind blacking out momentarily.
"So good." She replied while her hands ran the length of my back. My eyes flittered open to find her gazing at me with the beatific smile of a woman pleasured. "Definitely time to sleep now." She murmured as we rolled to the side and snuggled together. I think I muttered an affirmative because she giggled just before my eyes closed.
