Beauty in the Broken

Air Trap

(A/N: I know that the prevailing opinion within the Stargate community is that Sam's mother's name was Debra. I believe that this comes from some novels that are considered 'in canon'. I've never read them, so I can't comment on them.

However, in "Jolinar's Memories", the team travels to Netu to rescue Jacob Carter. While they're down in the pits, they hear Jacob say something. Most people say that he calls out Sam's name-but I've always heard him say the word "Thea". To me, it sounds like he is so near death that, when he hears Sam's voice, he immediately thinks he's hearing his deceased wife, so he calls for her. Try as I might, I can't think of Mrs. Carter as anyone other than "Thea".

Yes, I'm weird. No, I'm not sorry about it. You're welcome to substitute "Debra" for "Thea" if you wish. ?)

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# # #

"I hope she gets your nose."

Sam burrowed her cheek deeper into her pillow, sighing into the crisp cotton. Cracking one eye open, she peered through the darkness at her husband. "She?"

"The baby." Jack lay on his side, facing her. "We have Jake already. If this one's a girl, we'll have one of each."

"So, you think we're having a girl?"

"I think we're having a baby." Smiling, he reached out and traced the outline of her nose with his finger. Slowly. Deliberately. "And all I'm saying is, if that baby is a girl, that she would be much better off having your nose than mine."

Sam frowned, squinting a little as she attempted to focus on his proboscis. It was still early—too early to be awake. Her alarm wouldn't ring for another forty-five minutes—and that had only been set under duress. "What's wrong with your nose?"

"It's big and pointy." He'd obviously been thinking about this. Motioning up towards his face, he hooked his thumb and forefinger into an exaggerated 'L' shape. "And it's got this weird knob at the end of it."

"It does not."

"Does too." Rolling closer, he pressed the evidence against her neck. "See?"

With a stunted giggle, Sam jerked away from him, unsurprised when he only scooted closer, pressing his lips to the spot, instead. Once. And again.

And again.

Sam gathered him closer, threading her fingers through his hair, cradling the back of his head in her palm. She stilled as his hand searched for her under the covers, unable to quell her ridiculous smile as she felt his fingers splay wide on her belly. Sweetly protective. With a deep exhale, she made a careful study of the feature in question. "Your nose is perfectly fine."

He paused, his breath warm on her skin. "It's big."

"It's straight and strong." Sam twisted a lock of his hair between her fingers, then brushed her lips against his crown. After a moment's thought, she skimmed the edge of his ear with his fingertip. "My nose, on the other hand, is kind of weird."

"What are you talking about?" Raising up on his elbow, Jack took her chin between his fingers, turning her face until he could study her profile on the sparse light coming in through the window. "Your nose is the most perfect nose I've ever seen."

He'd been home for more than a week. General Hammond had put the team on stand down until they could better evaluate Bledsoe's road to recovery. Surgery had gone well, but the Major had been fighting an abscess in one of his wound sites—probably due to contaminants in the ash and soil of the planet they'd fled.

Jack's thigh, on the other hand, was healing up nicely, as were the sunburn and dehydration. Sam had done a thorough examination each time they'd changed the dressing, reporting the progress back to Janet rather than inflicting the Colonel on the staff in the infirmary. There was no residual infection—not even much bruising—but Jack would add another scar to his already impressive collection.

Not that the injury had knocked him back any. After a day or two of hanging around the house playing with Jake, he'd gone a bit cabin-crazy. Sam had come home from the Mountain each day to find them at the park or playing in the tiny backyard, bundled up against the early January chill. Yesterday evening, she'd arrived to find the house empty. She'd started dinner, folded some laundry, and tidied Jake's bedroom before she'd heard Jack's truck pull up in front of the house.

They'd come in filthy—wet and muddy—covered in sand and muck, but grinning from ear to ear. They'd spent the day at the reservoir. Jack had taken his son fishing.

Sam, on the other hand, had headed into work each day since the start of the new year. Her mornings had become frighteningly routine. Get up. Shower. Dress. Eat breakfast. Drive to work. Throw up in the bathroom on the 19th level. Spend the rest of the day trying not to throw up again.

Janet had been right about the ginger—and the protein. They'd offered some relief. Sam still hadn't solved the issue of losing her first breakfast, but she'd been fairly successful at managing the nausea for the rest of the day. Jack had taken it upon himself to pack her a second breakfast that she could eat in her lab.

There had been plenty of resultant hobbit jokes.

Sam had simply rolled her eyes and taken it in stride. Being holed up in her lab was surprisingly beneficial to her present condition. She'd learned that sudden, strong smells wreaked havoc on her sensitive stomach. Staying sequestered in her own little fiefdom allowed her a modicum of control over what odors she was exposed to and when.

And it kept people from asking too many questions. She really didn't want to share the news of the baby—not until things were more settled. She'd heard enough stories about miscarriages, blighted ovums, and ectopic pregnancies from the Mommy Brigade that she still felt wary about the whole thing. Twelve weeks. That's when she'd start feeling more secure.

What she hadn't been able to figure out was how to manage the situation with her research team. She'd sent off her report detailing her findings about the Ancient power source, only to be largely ignored. Colonel Torres hadn't bothered to respond in any way—let alone answer her repeated attempts at communication. A few days ago, she'd requested a video conference with the rest of the team, only to be met with stony silence. At loose ends, she'd set herself to work on tweaking the naquadah scanners retrieved by SG-10 and assisting the medical teams who were reviewing DNA testing processes and results for the Ancient gene.

Finally, just before she'd left the Mountain yesterday, she'd received a message from Torres about an early morning private briefing today. Which was why she'd set her alarm for the ungodly hour of four-thirty.

Thus the reason she was the tiniest bit peeved about being woken up even earlier than necessary by her husband to talk about facial features.

"Hey." His whisper bit through the darkness. "Did you fall asleep again?"

With a haphazard little laugh, Sam rolled her eyes. If she had, her husband would obviously not have let her doze. "No. I was just thinking."

"About what?"

After a pause, she sighed. "Noses."

"What about them?"

Tugging at the covers, she settled more deeply into the mattress. "When I was in high school, this boy I liked told me I had an aquiline nose."

"Yeah?"

Sam closed her eyes—thinking back. "Marco—no. Morgan—or Magnus—I don't remember. Anyway, we were in English class and the teacher was dictating our vocabulary words. One of those words was 'aquiline'. This kid just blurts out, 'Hey, Sammy has an aquiline nose.' I thought it was this huge compliment. 'Aquiline'. It sounds pretty, right?"

"Sammy?" His voice carried the hint of a smile.

"Don't. Just—don't."

"Okay. No 'Sammy'. Gotcha."

"So, after school I went home and looked it up in the dictionary, and I felt like such an idiot."

Expertly, he shifted them both so that he lay on his back, with her head resting on his bicep. "Why?"

"Because the word 'aquiline' refers to a nose that has a prominent bridge, is bumpy, and sometimes hooks downward. It's also called a Roman nose. And in general, it's not considered an attractive attribute for a girl." By now, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could see him clearly. "Ever since then, I've never been able to look at myself in the mirror without thinking about the fact that I have a weird, ugly nose."

The night fell quiet around them again, until he grumbled deep in his throat. "This kid. Do you remember his last name?"

Turning, she rolled towards him, pressing her lips against his collarbone. She searched through her memories for the name, finally finding it. "Andreason. And it was Marcus. Marcus Andreason. He lived over on Oberon Road when my dad was stationed at Beale. Three streets down from where we lived on Edison. There was a park across from his house where all the kids from school went to hang out. I used to love it because there was this guy who sold ice cream from a cart next to a big fountain."

"Sounds nice."

"It was. But I couldn't go back after that."

"Why?"

"Because he might be there. And I didn't want him to look at me." She paused, wrapping her arm around his waist. "I was sure that anytime anyone looked at me, all they could see was my gigantic schnoz."

Her husband fell silent, his hand warm and heavy on her hip. After what seemed like an age, he sucked in a quick breath. "Do you think he still lives there? I've got some time off. I'll go kick his little ass."

Despite it all, Sam chuckled. "It's all right, Jack. I ended up beating him out for valedictorian, and his application to the Academy was denied, so I think I ended up winning."

For several long moments, Jack merely studied her, his eyes dark and serious. When he spoke, his voice was carefully passive. "Beale. When was that?"

"We moved there when I was fourteen or so."

"So—after."

Sam looked away, over his shoulder. Off towards the window, where the night edged in and around the curtains. Dawn was still an hour away, but the dark already seemed thinner. "Yeah. My mother had died over a year before that."

"Did you tell your dad?"

"About Marcus? Why?" She reached for his dog tags, rubbing her finger along the leather silencers. "He would just have told me to buck up and get over it."

He fell quiet for a long time, finally angling his face towards hers. "What would your mom have done?"

Sam had never thought about that—although her mother had been on her mind frequently lately. Thea Carter had been nurturing and kind. Sweet. Sassy and funny where Jacob Carter's natural gruff sarcasm had been grating.

What would her mom have done? Probably plunked herself down on Sam's bed and cried with her for a while. And then? "Ice cream right out of the carton. Silly movies. She'd have made me laugh at myself and then told me that boys were stupid."

"She sounds like she was pretty awesome."

"She was." Sam turned back to meet Jack's eye. "She was so beautiful. Petite. Graceful, you know? She'd been a dancer before she met my dad, working on a biology degree in college. She got pregnant with my brother and they got married."

"Scandalous."

"In those days? Yeah. Maybe." Running her finger along the ball chain of his dog tags, she shook her head, remembering. "Even so, she finished her degree and then completed a Master's. She loved us so intensely. We never questioned it. Ever. She made everything okay. She was strong, and optimistic, and so determined about everything. She could do anything and fix anything."

He touched her face, his skin rough against her cheek. "You take after her."

Sam mulled that over for the longest time, smiling up at the ceiling while Jack's hand drifted down her body to make lazy circles on her abdomen. "I don't think so. I'd like to—but I think I'm already failing at it. She made all this look so easy."

"All what?"

"Motherhood. Marriage. Being married to someone in the service." She laid her hand on his. "Holding down the fort. Being left behind. She sent my dad off on dozens of deployments and we never worried. At least, she never let us see her worry."

"Sam—"

"When you were gone, I thought about it a lot. How I was so scared that you weren't coming home. That I'd never see you again. That I hadn't even properly kissed you goodbye." Sam pressed her fingertips to her lips, shaking her head. Bending her legs, she kicked at the covers, suddenly too warm. "I thought a lot about my mom and how much better she handled it than I did. I've been on both sides of the deployment thing. I should have known better. The logical part of me knew that I was being stupid."

"Not stupid, Sam." Jack's voice soothed towards her. "Just—human."

"Jack—I was a mess. Janet thinks that part of it was hormones, but honestly—I haven't felt like myself since—"

"Since the ice planet."

Pressing her lips together, she found his foot with her own, her toes light on his arch, skimming upwards to graze the hair on his ankle. "So much has happened. I haven't handled it nearly as well as I think I should have."

For a time, they both fell silent, Jack's fingertips making slow arcs against her shoulder, Sam's hand heavy on his chest. The light in the room had shifted again, moving from deep blue to a misty purple. Morning was still a little way off—but nearer.

"It was an accident, right?"

"My mom?" Sam turned her face into his shoulder. "She was in a taxi. It was t-boned by a delivery truck."

"So, your mom. The person who loved you unconditionally, your rock. The one person you depended on for everything." He paused purposefully. "She left one day and never came home."

"Yeah."

"And you don't think that might be coming back to bite you in the butt?"

Sam simply lay there, stunned. She'd never thought about it like that before. Somehow, in all of her obsessing during the past three weeks, she'd never put the pieces together. "Damn."

"I went to a shrink once." Jack reached over and combed his fingers through her hair. "I was ordered to go see this person—a therapist, or whatever—after Iraq."

She hadn't known that—although it made sense given his captivity and subsequent torture. He'd have to have proven more than just physical fitness to be cleared for a return to duty. She made a little hum in the back of her throat, inviting him to continue.

"She asked me a lot about my parents. My mom and dad and how things were."

Sam closed her eyes, thinking about what she knew of her husband's upbringing—the absent mother, the addict father. The dysfunction and neglect that he'd alluded to but never described fully.

"I was—different—back then, Sam. Rougher. The temper, the attitude. Everything. The shrink prattled on about me modeling behaviors I'd seen as a child—and she was right." He paused, mired in his past—or maybe dissecting his past to expose only the parts that needed to be examined. "Sara and I—we were happy. But she put up with a lot more than she should have had to. Near the end—even before Charlie—she told me that she stayed because she knew that I cared, despite it all—I just needed to learn to show it in a better way. I was too—hard."

In the back of her mind, Sam could see Jack—months before, standing near an Ancient altar as it powered up to start another loop. As he confronted the alien archaeologist Malikai below an alien sun spitting out flares and radiation.

"Listen to me! I know what it's like."

"You can't!"

"I lost my son! I know! And as much as I—" He'd paused, stopping just short of revealing everything profoundly, intensely personal. "I could never live that over again. Could you?"

She'd never heard him sound so raw before—never seen that depth of pain in his eyes. She'd felt like a voyeur, seeing his grief exposed so plainly, even though he'd kept it so closely hidden from everyone. And she'd wanted to touch him—to hold him—so badly. Just so that he'd know that he wasn't alone. Instead, she'd looked away. He wouldn't have wanted her watching.

"Jack—"

But his voice stopped her. "Being scared to lose someone doesn't make you weak or stupid, Sam. It means you love hard. It means that you're committed."

Tilting her head back, she met his eyes. "I am, you know."

"I do." His fingers smoothed along her skin. "I just thought a different perspective might be helpful."

Sam laid her cheek against his chest, turning her lips towards his skin. "It is."

Shifting, he scooted a little back on the mattress, turning onto his side so that he could look at her. "Can I suggest something else?"

"Of course."

"I know that you think that you've lost your mojo."

Despite it all, she grinned. "Did I ever have mojo?"

His teeth flashed in a smile. "Anyway. Do you remember the first time you went into the centrifuge?"

"Of course." Nodding, Sam rose up on one elbow, propping her head up on her fist. "We were all nervous about it because if we passed out, we might get booted from the program."

"So, the instructors taught you all about GLOC, and how to tense up to push more oxygen to your brain."

"Rapid air exchanges, speed jeans, hick breathing—" Sam squinted off over his shoulder, remembering. "If you couldn't hit the Gs and get through them, you didn't get to fly."

"But it all came down to the Spin and Puke."

Grimacing, Sam swallowed. "Can we not talk about puking right now?"

"All right. The 'centrifuge'." He held up two fingers curved into quotation marks as he said it. "If you burned out of the centrifuge, you couldn't become a pilot."

"Right."

"When I first went into the Spin and—the centrifuge—I was a ball of nerves. I'd never even flown a Cessna, let alone a jet. All the other guys in my class had been to the Academy or had experience in the air. But there I was, this ornery, attitudinal Irish Mustang from the middle of nowhere with something to prove." Jack splayed his hand on the sheet between them, pushing himself up to lean against the headboard. "When it was my turn in the Spinner, I was determined not to fail. I marched into the centrifuge and never even considered passing out."

Sam bit her lip for a moment. "I guess that you and I are more alike than I thought."

"You too?"

"Only, I wasn't Irish. Or a Mustang. Or attitudinal." She rolled over onto her back. "I was a girl. The only woman in my class, mind you. All the guys kept expecting me to quit, or fail, or burn out."

"But you didn't."

"Nope. I came in first in my class."

"Of course you did." He touched her hair again. "Because you're a badass."

"Still?"

"Still, Sam." After a beat, he began again. "And how about when you were two?"

"What about it?"

"Years ago—that briefing when we met for the first time. Kawalsky was giving you the business. And you, Captain Sassypants, told him that you hadn't been afraid of the dark since you were two." He paused, giving her time to catch up. "What changed when you were two?"

Thinking back, Sam put the pieces together. "I learned how light switches worked. Whenever I was scared, I could just turn the light on and investigate."

"There you go."

She knew what he was doing—and it was wonderful. Tools. He'd reminded her about her tools. All the ways she'd found to cope through the years. How she'd found equilibrium again amidst a life that always seemed to be in flux. "You've thought about this a lot."

"I had a lot of time to think while we were hiking halfway around a volcano."

"You thought about me?"

"I'm always thinking about you." His smile was intimate. He moved again, laying down beside her and threading his arm behind her head. "You've always taken up entirely too much space in my head. Even when—especially when—you really weren't supposed to."

Studying him for a moment, Sam hesitated before speaking again. "I just don't want to lose it all. Not when I've only just realized what I want."

"There's always risk, Sam." For a while, he simply lay there, staring up at the ceiling, his body warm beneath her. "But you have to know that I will do whatever is necessary to get home to you."

"I do."

"Because you're everything I've ever wanted. You and Jake and whoever this is." His hand found her stomach again, his eyes deepening as he settled in next to her. "And there's no way in the universe that I'm going to just give up on any of it."

Smiling into the darkness, Sam jabbed at his calf with her foot. "How about you vow not get stranded on any more random planets?"

"I can't make that promise." Rolling towards her, he wrapped an arm around her body and pulled her close. "But I know that if I don't come home, you'll find some way to come find me and kick my ass."

With a breathy little sigh, she snuggled even closer. It was still too early, the morning only just beginning. Sam ran her hand up his body, combing through the hair on his chest, wrapping the ball chain of his dog tags around her finger. "I'm not going to be able to go back to sleep. I really should just get up and go to work. "

"Well, that's a bad plan."

"Why?"

"Because going to work means getting dressed."

"That, it does."

"And you're naked right now."

"Thanks to you."

"And naked is infinitely better than dressed." He kissed her temple, his hands wandering downward. When he spoke again, his lips tickled against her throat while his fingers teased elsewhere. "I thought you'd know that. Being a smarty-pants wunderkind doctor and all."

Swallowing a moan, Sam relaxed against him, giving herself to his touch. In so many ways, her husband was a smarty-pants wunderkind, too.

# # #

"Is this thing on?"

Sam adjusted the angle on the camera attached to her computer monitor. Glancing at the picture-in-picture she made sure that she was visible from the other side before answering. "Yes, Sir."

"Major Carter?" Torres frowned into his camera. "I'm assuming that the connection is up and working."

"It is, Sir." Sam reached for the papers she'd prepared for the meeting. Setting them directly in front of her, she checked the order of her presentation before looking back up at the monitor. "I guess we're just waiting for the rest of the team."

"Negative." The Colonel shook his head, raising a mug of coffee up for a sip. After a quick swallow, he gestured towards the screen with his cup. "It's just you and me this morning."

"Oh?" She didn't even try to hide her surprise. "I was under the impression that you wanted me to share my report on the Antarctic power source."

"I do." Leaning back into his chair, Torres narrowed his eyes at his monitor. "I've skimmed through what you've already sent over, and I'm interested in the correlation between the power source and the quantum mirror."

"Isn't the rest of the team also interested in what I've discovered?"

"Probably." He didn't even bother to disguise his impatience. "But they're assigned to investigate something else at the moment. So, like I said, it's just you and me this morning."

Okay. Sam took a breath, careful not to allow her expression to betray her confusion. Flipping the first folder open, she skimmed her finger down to the first bullet point. "Well, the two pieces of technology share a remarkable number of characteristics. Chief among those similarities is their mineral makeup."

"They're made of the same material."

"Yes, Sir." Sam turned to the page she'd prepared listing the composite materials. "Both the mirror and the power source are of a crystalline structure. It's something like quartz enhanced with elemental naquadah. There are some other minerals in there, as well. Some of them we've identified, and some are completely foreign to us within our current scientific knowledge."

"So, you don't know how the power source works."

"Well, yes and no, Sir."

"Major, get to the point."

"If you'd please refer to the report I sent, some clarification can be found on page seven." Sam motioned toward the papers on the table in front of her. "If you'll look at what I've labeled Table 2, you'll see a list of those minerals and chemicals that we've been able to identify. Table 3 is a list of those we aren't familiar with."

Torres glanced down at his desk—presumably at the pages Sam had sent to his assistant to print out for him. His eyes barely scanned the documents. "How is this going to help us, Major?"

"It's important that we know the basics."

"Why?"

Sam carefully schooled her features into something benign. When she spoke again, she was careful to moderate her tone. "So that we can comprehend the more complex things later, Sir."

"Why?"

"Because we can't synthesize or engineer what we don't understand."

Colonel Torres let out an exasperated groan. "Are you just going to ask for more time, Major? Because it sounds to me like you're stalling for yet another extension."

"No, Sir." Sam laid her hands in her lap, straightening on her chair. "Not at all. I believe that I have pinpointed how the power source functions, based on the similarities between the construction of both objects."

"And can you make it work?"

Here, Sam faltered. The Colonel wasn't going to like her response. Hell—she herself didn't like the conclusions she'd reached, and she'd had longer to mull it all over. "Unfortunately, Sir, no."

"Damn it, Major." Torres shoved himself back into his chair, eliciting a spate of metallic creaking and groaning. He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, his jaw tight. When he finally looked back at the monitor, his gaze was hard. "Why not?"

"If you'd just look at the tables, Sir, I could—"

"I don't want to look at paperwork, Major Carter. I want you to explain this to me."

"Okay. Fine." Impatience had started to creep into her tone. Sam pressed her lips together, angling her chin down towards the table in an effort to control herself.

"Any time now."

"If you want to follow along, you could look at page seven of the report. But if you don't? I'll try to go slow so that you understand."

"Watch it, Major."

She sucked in a deep breath, regretting it almost instantly. Something—the smell from her protein shake?—some random cleaning agent?—a forgotten bit of something left in a drawer?—filled her nostrils, causing her gut to lurch and her mouth to fill with saliva.

Coffee—it was coffee. Looking up and towards her door, she watched as a pair of security personnel meandered down the hall. One of them was carrying a large mug, gesturing with it as he walked.

Damn her iffy stomach. Damn her magnified, bionic sense of smell. The last thing she needed to do right now was vomit. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the task at hand, gathering the right words and breathing through the nausea.

With any luck, she'd only appeared flustered and not ill. Swallowing carefully, she gingerly cleared her throat. "The quantum mirror transports particles from reality to reality using a subspace portal similar to the Stargate's wormhole technology."

Torres picked up a pen from his desk, gesturing with it at the camera mounted on his monitor. "I know that, Carter."

Pressing her lips together, Sam clenched her teeth before continuing. "I believe that the power source essentially does the same thing. The energy is captured within the crystalline structure of the module by accessing subspace and gathering a charge from the atmosphere there."

He swiveled to one side in his chair, staring up at the ceiling as he narrowed his eyes in thought. "So, what you're saying is that the crystal actually draws power from the air in the nothing that exists between dimensions?"

"Sort of, Sir." Sam nodded. It wasn't exactly how the process worked, but he'd gotten close enough to facilitate communication. "There's a minute charge in every atom. According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, every atom, every particle, and every molecule is in a state of constant flux. That fluctuation releases energy. Like the heat that rises from a car hood while the motor is running, or air movement when someone runs past you—but on a much smaller level. That energy—minute as it may be—is called zero point energy."

"Zero point energy?" Skeptical wasn't the right word to describe Torres' tone. A distinct note of disbelief oozed through the Colonel's words. "Isn't that theoretical?"

"It's been a subject of debate amongst those who study quantum theory for decades, but never truly proven or even tested, Colonel." Sam paused, parsing her words with care. "This power source is the closest we've ever gotten to confirming that zero point energy is even possible to harness and use."

"That's good news, isn't it?"

"In a way." Folding her hands together on the table in front of her, she took a wary beat. "The first step in understanding something is identifying it."

"So? Now that we've identified it, how do we harness it?" Torres's brows rose. "How can we use it to benefit Earth?"

"I'm not sure that we can, Sir." Sam frowned down at her reports. There was nothing to do but rip the bandage off. This was the part she'd been dreading. "I believe that this crystal is grown in some manner that allows it to feed off of the energy found in subspace."

"Grown?"

"It's only a working theory, Colonel Torres, but I believe that the Ancients found a way to access subspace, create a conduit from it to our dimension, and grow these crystals using a seed element such as naquadah-enhanced quartz."

Scooting his chair closer to his desk, the Colonel shook his head. "My daughter grew crystals for a science fair project a few years ago. She used borax, sugar, and salt. She's a smart kid, but she's not a genius. And it didn't look too difficult."

"Anything with a crystalline structure can be grown. Under the right conditions, we can even create diamonds in a laboratory. We've been doing that since the nineteen-fifties." She looked over at where the power module still sat suspended in its sling, its dull glow radiating golden orange from its interior. "Most of the more advanced alien civilizations we've run across use crystals as power sources or to contain information. The Goa'uld, the Tollan, and the Asgard all integrate crystals into their technology in various ways. And the Tok'ra use the science of crystal seeding in order to grow their tunnels. This is similar, but, with the addition of quantum energy sourcing, it's so far beyond our current capabilities that it's laughable."

Torres followed her findings to their logical result. "And without knowing and understanding as to what technology they used to create these crystals, it's unlikely that we will be able to duplicate their results."

"Exactly." Sam pressed her lips together with a tiny shake of her head. "And consequently, I don't believe it will be possible to recharge the crystal we have without figuring out how the Ancients created it in the first place."

Torres studied her across the connection, his eyes keenly focused not on the camera on his side, but on her image in his monitor. "We'd have to find more of them."

"Yes, Sir."

"Have you calculated how much of a charge is still in the one we have?"

"Based on my understanding of the decay rate of naquadah, what I've learned of Asgard and Tok'ra crystal technology, and what we theorize of zero point energy, I'm guessing that this crystal is at around fifty percent."

For a long moment, he stared off into nothing—at a point beyond the monitor, or out a window—silently tapping the pen against the palm of his other hand.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Sam knew the look. The way he held his head. The constant, rhythmic movement of the cheap plastic writing implement. He wasn't just thinking. He was planning. Strategizing.

Exactly what he was planning, Sam couldn't even begin to guess.

When he finally spoke, he sounded calm, despite the continued movement of the pen. "Well, Major. That is, indeed, a disappointment."

"Sir—I don't think that we should give up." She thumbed through the pages in her report until she found the right one. "If you'll turn to page fourteen—"

"There's no point, Carter." Rolling his chair forward, Torres tossed the pen onto the desk. "You've already said that it's beyond our capabilities."

"Still, I believe that—"

"I'm ending this." Torres closed the folder on his desk, pushing it aside. "There's something else that we've been working on that I think you can help with."

"But Sir. Deciphering the intricacies of the ZPM—"

"The what?"

"The ZPM." Lifting the folder into view, she tapped at the papers with her finger. "It's in the report. Because of the findings of my research, I've been calling the power source a 'Zero Point Module'."

"Whatever." Tilting sideways, he tugged at something there—a drawer, probably. When he came back upright, he gestured at the camera with a different set of papers. "Since we're a no-go on that project, I've got another one that I'd like you to work on."

"The ZPM isn't a no-go." She'd tried to keep any petulance out of her voice, but some bled through, anyway. "I just need more time with it. Also, I'd like to contact the Asgard or the Tollan and get their perspectives on the technology."

"That isn't going to happen, Major. I don't think it's a good idea to broadcast to the universe that we have this device."

"Even to our allies?"

"Especially not to our allies." Torres shook his head with a sour chuckle. "If they think that we have a device that could level the playing field, they might think twice the next time we approach them asking for help."

"With all due respect, Sir—"

"Major!" The Colonel's voice rose in a harsh bark. "It's over."

Sam glared at the screen, clenching her jaw so tightly that it ached. When she'd found a modicum of control, she tried again. "At least let me advise General Hammond that his teams need to be on the lookout for similar technologies."

"Negative, Major Carter." Torres shook his head, his dark eyes glinting in the monitor. "All this is on a need-to-know basis."

She tilted a look at the Colonel. "General Hammond is the one who supervised the discovery of the Antarctic site in the first place. He's on the front lines of this entire operation. I'd say that gives him a need to know."

"Things change, as you know, Major. Commands change." Reaching out, the Colonel took his computer mouse and made a few quick clicks. "I'm sending you an encrypted file. It's a new project that you'll be working on. I'm sending a few people from Groom Lake to the Mountain at the beginning of next week to assist you in completing this task, so please prepare some space in your lab for them."

"What kind of project, Sir?"

"Once you've decrypted the file, you'll understand. I'll expect you to begin work immediately." Torres pulled his keyboard tray out and started typing. With a little flourish, he hit the 'enter' key and then refocused on Carter's image on his monitor with a dark smile. "Again. This is need-to-know, so you're under orders to maintain mission parameters. Only discuss this project with me, and with members of your immediate team."

"Sir, I really do feel like I need to keep working on the power module."

"And I have told you that you won't." Torres's smile turned to a smirk. "You have your orders, Carter. And unlike your previous leadership, I expect you to follow them."

The webcam screen went blank.

Son of a bitch.

Sam tossed the report onto her desk, cursing again as the papers slid out of the folder to fan across the surface of her workspace. On the monitor, the email icon blinked, telling her she had a new message. Her new orders. Ready for decryption.

Damn the man. Pigheaded imbecile. Good lord, how she missed General Hammond. Hell—she even missed answering to Jack. At least he'd pretended to be interested in her scientific mumbo-jumbo from time to time. And General Hammond had listened patiently—approaching her explanations and theories from a standpoint of cautious curiosity. He'd trusted in both her science and her instincts, then made logical, intelligent decisions based on her recommendations.

Torres wasn't interested in any of that. He wasn't lacking in curiosity—but he certainly didn't appear to be invested in advancing anything beyond his own agenda. There was literally no reason other than stubborn one upmanship to put the kibosh on researching the ZPM. It was either that, or he had—

Damn.

He was either short-sighted, or he had an ulterior motive.

Sam gritted out a breath, groaning into the near-silence of her lab. The place was quiet—so early in the morning that not even the maintenance crews had arrived in full force yet. Sam had walked through deserted halls once she'd left the elevators an hour or so earlier. She hadn't even encountered any security personnel other than at the entrance and the two who'd walked past a few minutes ago.

"You have your orders. I expect you to follow them."

Chewing absently on a hangnail, Sam watched the icon blink and considered. Something about all this rubbed her the wrong way. Torres himself set her teeth on edge—and had done so since the beginning. But she'd been in the Air Force long enough to know the type. Old-school hard-ass misogynist with a gigantic chip on his shoulder—those were a dime a dozen in the service. Sam had worked with his kind off and on for her entire career.

But this? This felt different. Beyond the normal interdepartmental competitiveness. Darker, somehow. Insidious. As if more was at work here than overbearing egos and frustrated commanding officers in thankless desk assignments

"Things change, Major. Commands change."

What did that even mean?

"How about when you were two?"

He'd asked the question softly—laying beside her in the darkness just before dawn.

"I learned I could turn the light on and investigate."

"Then there you go."

He'd been talking about her finding her mojo. And courage. And rediscovering her inner badass. Despite everything else, she smiled. Smarty-pants indeed.

Turning her wrist, she glanced at her watch. It was almost zero seven hundred hours. General Hammond normally arrived around zero seven-fifteen. Standing, she reached over and turned off the webcam and monitor before angling herself towards the hall.

If she was lucky, she might catch him before he got his coffee.