AU: Though Jack is still in stasis, this chapter finds his tethered spirit at the outpost in the company of a strange little girl he can't remember... Can she get through to him?
TRIGGERS: Nothing specific though we are reminded of two tragic deaths.
Chapter 3: Remembering her
Thursday, 17th June 2004 – Antarctic Outpost – Colonel Jack O'Neill
It's rather disconcerting to be looking at oneself frozen in time.
Stasis. Whatever.
No movement, no signs of life, just… nothing. Except me and ultimately, if they turned the dormata off or pulled the potentia, the Tau'ri form in there would die and I would disappear, so really there was nothing.
Yet for so much nothing, there seemed to be something that held me here. Despite my continued attempts to move beyond the walls of this room, I remained steadfast. Stuck. Alive, but not. A spirit of the great beyond without having died to get there. Without having the chance to truly say goodbye to those I loved. Did I have anyone to love? The images in my mind suggested that I did.
There had been a little girl that visited regularly, though tempus didn't seem to mean anything in this place. She was here, then gone, then here again. Always with the same bright smile and calming presence. She encouraged me to pick up a strange white stone, but it always stayed firm, as if it were attached to the hand rest of the Anquietas chair. Apparently, I made it, though I didn't remember doing so. She said it reminded her of an egg. A special egg with a special purpose, but that someone else would need it and that I had to get it to that person.
Whoever they were.
There were images. Lot of images of lots of people. Some I thought I recognised but lots that I didn't. Some wore the same clothes that my frozen form wore, others were wearing flowing robes of white, tunics of beige and vests of brown. They were building a great city but got sick. Some died, others fled.
"Daddy?" The little girl said, her golden misty face smiling up at me. I knew her from the images but didn't remember how I knew her.
"Gratia, euge prima lume." I replied, earning myself a wispy shake of her head while scrunching her face up in the most adorable way. {Grace, good morning}
"You must think of the home talk." She stated while pointing at her head, "Remember." She coaxed then pulled my arm. I figured that meant she wanted me on her level, so I willed the low half of my spirit to mist so that I could be closer. "No. Sit. Bend your cozars." She said and showed me what she meant by folding her cozar in half at the middle joint. Looking down, I realised I did not look like her.
"Flectere cozars." I repeated as I reformed to the way I was. The way I appeared in the pod. Looking down at the little girl, she showed me again. Folding her lower half into a strange kind of three-sided prism.
Triangle, Sir!
The words came out of nowhere in a voice I recalled from somewhere, sometime. A voice that was important to me, somehow. Slowly, I folded myself like the girl and sat before her.
"Good." She said and smiled. She pointed at me. "This is your leg. Your bend your knee. Cozar is leg. Think leg…" She pointed to her head, "…say leg." She pointed to her mouth.
Pointing to my head, "Leozar…" I said making her giggle.
"Silly, Daddy." I knew that word. It had great meaning for me, but right now, I couldn't place what that was, only that every time she said it, I experienced an overwhelming feeling of love and peace.
"Mea… Dah-dae." I said while pointing to myself, my attempt at that word filling me with that feeling once again, only this time it was more. Bigger. Like I had learned something new about myself. I smiled and repeated. "Mea… Dah-dae." I still didn't know what it meant but it felt great to say it.
"Etium." She agreed and nodded. "Yes." She repeated in her 'home talk' then pointed to me, "Ani ego mea pare." She said in words I could understand. "You are my Daddy." She repeated in the other words. Suddenly images of her in another time, another place filled my mind. Images of a woman with golden hair and a radiant smile joined her. She reminded me of home, a place I didn't have any recollection of, which made me sad. Though I was sure that the little girl who was here now could help me.
"Gratia." I said then realised that I knew the other word, as if it had manifested in my mind. "Grace." I repeated with mesmerism as I looked at her. My daughter. New words appeared as if hidden behind a lock and key just waiting for someone to help me decode it all. Samantha. Daniel. Teal'c. Charlie. George. John and Sam. Sam. "Sam!" I called out suddenly realising where I had seen that radiant smile. It was here, but I didn't know who she was only that she meant a great deal to me.
More than she was supposed to. What did that even mean? How could someone mean more than they were supposed to?
"Yes, my love." She said, but I could not see her. The sudden need to find her filled me with a desperation that I had felt when I had lost her before. It was an unwelcome harbinger that I recognised from other times she had been lost or dying.
"Sam!" I called again, this time getting to my feet. No mist. Just the physical need to stand. Looking down I realised something new. They were called feet. On the ends of my legs. I wanted to run to her, but I couldn't see her. "Help me! Please, help me find home!" I called out to Sam. My Sam.
"I wish I could my love, but I cannot." She said a little more faintly than before. Her voice seemed like it was coming from everywhere and nowhere. "I have given all I can give. She will come for you. We gave all we could to keep you strong. It is your turn now. You must fight to go home. She will fight, but she needs your help, or she will not survive. You must remember. You must give her the stone."
"Remember what? What stone?" I asked desperately, but she did not respond. There was so much in my mind that things came and went as though my thoughts were on a rapidly flowing river, except her. She was always there as if no amount of knowledge could dislodge her from my mind. "Sam. Please, where are you?" I insisted. I knew she was here. I could feel her. It was like some strange buzzing sensation which didn't make sense because I was incorporeal. A tug on my shirt made me look down. It was Grace. She pointed towards the chair.
"That stone." She told me while pointing. Looking over the chair, I could see a white pearlescent stone. Had I seen it before? Grace sighed and walked up the chair then cupped her hands under it, through the chair arm. "You must remember." Then she lifted her hands, the stone went with it for a moment before it fell back down. "I cannot. I am not of this place. You must do this." She instructed with a terse look on her face.
"Remember." I repeated, looking again at the stone. Reaching for it, I closed my hand. It felt warm and tingly, the pearlescence moved as though reacting with my spirit. A sudden flash of a familiar aged face broke through to embed itself in my psyche. There was water and a small house. A young man and a girl. The woman was older than the man, but I knew her. "Sam!" I called out to her but lost the image as the stone fell through my hand and hit the floor.
"Yes." My Sam's ethereal voice confirmed. Looking around again, desperate to find my Sam, my eyes fell on Grace. She smiled and took the two steps down from the dais.
"This way." She beckoned, then walked across the floor over to a wall I had a vague recollection of walking through before. Placing her hand on the panel to the side, it lit up and opened a door for her. It was dark within and cold even though as a spirit I should not have been able to feel the cold. Once the door was fully opened, Grace walked in then stopped and looked up at a young woman living in the wall. She was beautiful. The bubbles wending their way from bottom to top highlighted the viscous nature of the whatever it was that she was suspended in. Somehow the word 'kolto' spoken in a deep voice floated into my mind, but I had no idea what that was or whose voice had spoken.
"She is for Aunt Sam." Grace said, then looked at me. I looked down at her.
"Aunt Sam?" I queried. "Who is Aunt Sam?" She sighed the way she did when I forgot things. Had I forgotten again?
"You called her Lieutenant Colonel Sam, then Carter, then just Sam. I call her Old Mum. You gave her more life, then you left. John needs her." She stated. This girl, my daughter could not be more than four years old, but she spoke as if she were an adult.
"John is me. Another me. Aunt Sam is…" I thought on who she was. Eventually an image of her face – an aged face, the same aged face from before – fought through the haze causing my breathing to pick up even though there was no oxygen. "…Sam!" I cried out, remembering that I was looking for her, but had forgotten.
"You must focus, Daddy, or you will forget. I cannot remember for you. I am too young." She explained, then turned and motioned with her head. "Come." With one last look at the woman, I turned and followed. The vestibule was getting darker and a little bluish the further in we walked, passing by more tanks, though each one empty and dormant. Some broken. As we moved deeper, I realised the bluish tinge surrounded in grey was her. Beside her lay the shallow and near translucent husk of another me from another reality with barely any life left in him.
"Sam." I said urgently, "Carter." I used her more common name, the one I had grown used to, the one that meant so much more to me than Sam. Over the years, it had become a pet name, like sweetheart or angel. She opened her eyes. They were blue grey instead of blue green like I remembered. Another name came to mind. "Macushla." I said as I placed my hand on her face. She smiled.
"Sir…" She tried to lift her head, but she couldn't, so she raised her hand and traced her fingers from the scar on my eyebrow, down my cheek and across my lower lip. "Jack… My Colonel." She smiled as her hand dropped away. That desperation returned knowing I was losing her again even though she had been lost months before.
"Sam, what… what must I remember?" I asked, reaching for her hand, though mine passed straight through it until I concentrated enough to be able to touch her. Her eyes fluttered. There was a pool a dark liquid under her ethereal body and a ragged seeping hole in her chest. This I remembered. The worst day of my life was happening again even though we were stuck in this hallowed place.
"Her. You must remember her." Sam said to me motioning with her eyes to the tank. To the woman in the tank who looked like…
"She's you. She's for Sam." I reconnected the dots, the dots from Grace's words that had already faded in the time it took me to move from there to here. This memory thing was a problem if I forgot as soon as something took my concentration.
"Yes. You have come far, my love." She said with a smile, "You are strong now." Her breath rasped the way it had that day, "You must fight to remember." Sam demanded. She was weak and getting weaker, but I didn't understand why. She was ascended, golden and beautiful. She should not look like this.
"She is not." Another voice said from behind me. I turned to find a woman looking professionally smart in her white business suit. The same suit she wore when Daniel ascended.
"Oma Desala." I said her name as if it had been in my memory all along. She smiled and nodded, then motioned with her hand.
"She is not Ascended. She must release her burden."
"Her burden." I repeated. "What burden?"
"You." She confirmed, "You are and always have been her burden. She must let you go. He must let her go, or they will die." Oma said to me. I didn't understand. How could I have become her burden. Oma smiled as if she knew the question I asked myself.
"You have always been each other's burden, and you always will be. But now another Sam needs your help. You must release this Sam from your heart and allow her to go." Oma instructed. "She is why you would not ascend at the palace." She said, taking a wispy step toward me. The image of tan coloured walls and tattered clothing came to my mind. A Goa'uld of unimaginable evil and lots of death. "Daniel believed your burden to be the blame for your son. It is not." She stated and looked at the woman who lay beside me. The feeling of hope filled my form, hope for survival, hope for love, hope for more.
"You are asking the impossible." I ground out. "I could never let her go. I love her." Oma smiled sadly and looked at Sam over my shoulder as she grasped my hand while her translucent Jack gripped her about the waist just below her injury. There was a shadow of pain etched on his face while he fought to not let go. The injury on his chest seeped a viscous black fluid as it grew to encompass his entire torso. I could see the same fluid adorning the frozen ground under his head and neck.
Reaching out, I laid my hand across his wrist and was instantly thrown backwards by a force that left a burning pain in my chest until my head cracked against the wall behind me. When I opened my eyes, I was still kneeling before them both and I realised I had just experienced a small part of his death. Sam sucked in a breath and grasped my hand tighter; her fingers scrabbling to make sure I didn't let go.
"Sir." She gasped, "Sir… please." Her words made me swallow heavily. I remembered them. I remembered her begging me. More than once. Those were the words she spoke while her eyes pleaded with me to not leave her behind, to love her and be with her always.
"Even now, she is trying to save you, and as she fights, she dies. While she fights, he holds on. She is his burden just as you are hers." Oma outlined.
"So, you are saying, I have to walk away. I have to leave her here." I demanded, needing to know what I could do to help her move on from this place. Oma didn't get it. If I just walked away, she would still hold on. She would not release that burden willingly. As if she could hear my thoughts, Oma projected the image of our final minutes together.
"Major! You hold on! You understand." I yelled as I bent over her dying form, my hands pressed into her chest trying in vain to stop her from bleeding out.
"Ye-ye-sssSir." She replied as her eyes fluttered. "Sssir…" She tried to say something, but I cut her off.
"No, stay with me. I need you. C'mon Sam." There was so much blood. It covered everything and I knew I was losing her, but I refused to believe it.
"J-jack…" She was tried to reach for something, but I grabbed her hand.
"No goddammit! You fight! That's an order, Major. Help is coming." I demanded then turned to scream for Teal'c again even though he was already running towards me. Her fingers were reaching for her pocket again.
She was about to speak when the scene disappeared, and the suited woman reappeared giving me a circumspect look. "You must order her to let you go, just as you ordered her to not leave you." Her words stung as I remembered that day in the blood-soaked dirt of the Alpha site. As she lay dying, I begged her, demanded her, ordered her not to leave me. To stay and to fight, to survive against the odds, and as always, my Major, my Sam had followed my order until she had nothing left to give. She never allowed herself to let go and now she was paying the price.
Turning back to Sam, I placed both my hands on her face and tipped my forehead to hers. "Sam, my love. You must let me go. You have done your duty. Please… please… Major… I order you to stand down, to let me go." I said to her even as pearlescent tears trickled down my ethereal face.
"Sir. No… with all due resp…" I didn't let her finish, instead covering her mouth with mine, sharing my love while mentally ordering her to stand down. It was time for her to go now. When I pulled back, she tried to follow, but I held her back.
"It's been an honour to serve with you, Major Samantha Carter. Always." I said to her.
She smiled, "It's been an honour, Colonel." Then her eyes closed and both her and the other Jack dissolved. She was gone and I felt it keenly, despite the small hand on my back seeking to soothe my pain. Moments later, two bright white lights with swishing arms rose and lit up every corner of the room. Higher and higher they floated – two of their swirling arms interlocked together – until they disappeared into the ice-covered ceiling of the cavernous room.
For a moment, the pain of her loss clouded everything. The small hand moved over my back making me turn to look at her. "Grace?" I said, bringing a smile to her face.
"You remembered." She replied then smiled even brighter. It was Carter's smile. Sam's smile with my colour hair and eyes. My daughter with Sam. Not Sam… Samantha. A smile grew on my face as happy memories of Samantha and Grace played through my memory. Another key, another lock bypassed.
"Yes. Yes." Turning back to the tank, I saw the woman floating. "She is for…" I paused as the memories morphed and showed me an older version, the one I gave lifeforce to in the most unusual and enjoyable way. "The other Sam." I stated, earning myself a nod from Grace. "The stone." I said suddenly, then stood, remembered to do so under my own power – whatever that was in this place. Looking down at my feet and then at Grace, I recited, "Cozars are legs. I have feet." She smiled and leapt up from her place. She twirled around and skipped out of the room towards the Anquietas chair, so I followed.
When I arrived, I saw the stone on the ground. Crouching down, I looked at it then reached out and grasped it with my hand. It felt like nothing and everything. "Sam needs this." I remembered as I held it in my hand and wondered how it could be here and there at the same time. It transcends time-space, Sir. Sam told me in a memory from a long past mission.
"You must think the stone in your hand and go over there." Grace instructed, pointing over near my sleeping pod. I nodded, and clasped my hand, then started walking. "No, Daddy. Think yourself there, think the stone with you." She explained. I guess that made sense. If I was going to get whatever this was to the other Sam, I couldn't walk there. Closing my eyes, I thought where I wanted to be. Opening them, I looked straight at myself in the pod, then heard the stone drop. Looking toward the chair, I saw it sitting on the ground beside Grace who was looking up toward the ceiling as if she were listening. At length, she looked back at me.
"I must go now." She looked at the stone and back to me. "I will return. You must practice." She said, pointing her small finger in my direction while wearing a cheeky smile.
"Yes, ma'am." I replied with a silly salute. She smiled and saluted back then winked out in a flash. She had given me a new purpose. With a renewed resolve, I reappeared at the foot of the chair and stooped to pick up the stone determined the get this right because Sam needed my help to get me home and I was damned certain that her sacrifice would not be in vain.