Chapter Text
There's still a little bit of your taste in my mouth
Still a little bit of you laced with my doubt
It's still a little harder to say what's going on
A single bead of sweat ran down Sam's forehead. It disappeared into her hairline, leaving its ghost on her skin. Jack--surely he was Jack now, had his face pressed against her neck. His breath was hot on her skin; the air was hot in her lungs, and where were they?
Jack shifted as he slid into her, and she couldn't think. She squeezed her eyes tight against the growing certainty that something was very, very wrong. Why was it so damn hot? She reached up and ran her thumbs over his cheeks. They were damp and rough. She wanted to look into his eyes, to see herself reflected back in them. How would she look?
Who was she?
He pulled away before she could find out. She wanted him back. Wanted to be grounded beneath him, to feel his weight on her chest. "Carter," he murmured against her breast. Carter. Yes, that was her, Sam Carter, and he was Jack. Just Jack, only that wasn't right, was it? Sure it was. It had to be, because he was dragging his tongue down her stomach now.
Her fingers were in his hair and she looked down through her knees and past his head. There was a large fire burning on the other side of the room. It was the only source of light and wasn't that odd?
Something about the far wall had caught her attention. Some small detail that stuck in her mind like a pebble in a shoe. She put it aside. Jack had two fingers inside of her and his tongue was still very busy. She called out his name when she came and it was still too hot, and the wall hadn't been a wall at all because they were in a tent.
They were in a tent and she was Carter. Just Carter, because he wasn't just Jack.
They had stepped through the gate together. They were looking for something.
Light.
There had been a blinding light and then nothing. Nothing but the heat and the taste of his skin on her lips. And now he was on his knees and she wasn't stopping him from sliding a hand underneath her. Then he was pushing into her, impatient and needy, and she wasn't stopping that either. Sweat was running down his temples and she was going to come again.
Jack leaned forward, covering her body with his own and breathing heavily into her shoulder. He paused like that and whispered her name. She tried not to hear the question in his voice. "Don't," she said, gripping the back of his neck. Don't ask. Don't think. "Please." Don't stop. The fire had grown brighter, casting its warm glow farther into the room. Jack didn't ask any questions and she wrapped her arms low around his back.
The impatience was gone, replaced by a slow, deliberate motion that was putting Sam's entire body on edge. Jack lifted his head, stared down at her and there she was, caught in his eyes. He pushed deeper, pausing at the end of each stroke to breathe. Then nothing was deliberate or slow, and when he called out her name again, Sam wanted to cry.
Jack rolled to her side and put his head on her stomach. Sam closed her eyes and ran her fingers through his hair while the sweat dried on their skin.
"Where are we?" he finally asked.
"I think we're in a-," tent, she was going to say tent. The back wall had been rippling with what she'd assumed was the motion of canvas caught in a breeze. Only now, with the fog clearing from her mind, she could see she'd been wrong. The rippling tent wall had become the translucent bulkhead of a ship and the movement she'd attributed to wind became the filtered light of the stars as they streaked past. The fire was gone, replaced by a clear conduit carrying a light-emitting substance. She could feel it now, too. The steady hum of engines and the mechanical movement of air.
"Carter?" He sat up next to her. His eyes were clear now, focused and intent. His skin was still touching hers.
Sam missed the simplicity of the tent and the fire because further complications were not what they needed right now. "We're on a ship."
********
Following the trail of her discarded clothes was a little like walking backwards through time to a beginning she couldn't remember.
Underwear, pants, boots--nice little breadcrumbs, all in a line leading nowhere. She followed them to her t-shirt, small and alone at the edge of the smooth, curved wall. Looking at this part of the wall was like looking through a rain-soaked windshield on a busy night-time highway. When she reached out, the wall disappeared completely beneath her fingertips. Stars left streaks of light as they passed. The effect was disorienting and mesmerizing. She picked up her shirt with an unsteady hand, held it to her chest and-
She’s still wearing the t-shirt, but not for long. Jack has her backed up against this very wall while he pulls it out of her waistband and slides his hands underneath. He’s pressed so tight against her she can’t see his face. She leans her head back and closes her eyes because she’s wanted this for so, so long. The wall feels cool against her back but his hands are warm and solid as they move over her skin. He steps back and drags her shirt up higher, his fingers leaving warm trails across her ribs. She raises her arms so he can pull it over her head and it falls to the floor, forgotten and unnecessary.
She could see it clearly in her mind, a single breadcrumb, out of line and out of context. When she closed her eyes, trying to recall what had come before, there was only the memory of his touch and another breadcrumb as useless as the first and going the wrong direction because-
She’s on her knees. One hand spread wide, low on his stomach and she’s always wanted him like this. Hasn’t she? She can feel his muscles tense under her fingertips, and yes, this feels like something she’s thought about a lot. She looks up at him, and he’s staring back at her so intently she has to look away. His hands are hovering around her head, brushing against her hair. He wants to hold her, to go harder, deeper. She knows this, and god, maybe she wants that too. She stops and urges him to the floor because this is too fast and they’ve waited such a long time.
"Carter?" Sam flinched when he reached out and put his hand on her bare shoulder. It was still warm; maybe his hands were always warm. How could she know? She turned around, trying hard to not look like she wanted him to keep touching her like that. He kept his hand on her for too long because maybe he knew anyway.
Sam swallowed hard when he finally pulled away.
"I'm sorry," he said in a voice full of rough edges and hidden meanings. The light from the conduit highlighted the sheen on his forehead and she thought he was beautiful. She misunderstood his words for a moment, thinking he was apologizing for startling her. That would have made sense in another lifetime when Occam’s razor still applied. Here on this ship, his apology meant so much more.
She just shook her head and put her hand on his face, running it over his cheekbone to the roughness of his jaw. And wasn’t it a little too rough? He hadn't found his own shirt yet and she had to stop herself from continuing down his chest. Would she stop there? No, she didn’t think she would--didn’t think she could, and this had never been so hard.
"No," she said. Her words couldn't erase the anguish in his eyes but they were all she had to offer. They weren’t even very good words because they weren’t the right ones. "Whatever happened here wasn't your fault."
He was holding her TAC vest, a plastic and nylon reminder that sooner or later, those breadcrumbs would lead back to a mission gone horribly wrong. Or maybe, she thought before she could stop herself, it had finally gone right. Wasn’t this what they’d wanted all along?
"Our weapons are missing," he said, changing the subject to a more comfortable topic. Of course they were, because nothing was ever easy for the two of them. Earlier, she thinks, that was easy--far too easy. How much of a push had it taken to make them forget about rules and regulations and all the other roadblocks they’d constructed over the years?
When her fingers brushed against his as she took her vest, she told herself it was an accident and decided it probably hadn’t taken much of a push at all.
Three full clips for her missing weapon, one radio, a flashlight, two canteens--still full, one pressure-dressing, a Gerber multi-tool, and a handful of Hershey’s Kisses. She laid the contents of her vest out in front of her, taking inventory and trying to create her own distraction.
It wasn’t enough and she couldn’t stop herself from watching him pull his shirt over his head because she’s always liked him best in that simple black t-shirt. His movements were slow and methodical, like he was functioning on auto-pilot. When he looked back at her, everything she shouldn’t be feeling was staring at her from his eyes. She adjusted the straps on her vest for the first time in years. Her chest felt too tight and no amount of slack would relieve the pressure.
Something had changed, shifted on its axis in a way that couldn’t be fixed.
********
She calculated the area of a fifteen foot circle while she swept the room for answers. The math was simple but comforting, engaging one of the few parts of her brain that hadn’t been overwhelmed by him. Fifteen feet, she thinks, is the size of a stargate. Not even two-hundred square feet of inefficient floor space and her hands are shaking before she’s done. It was a waste of time and self-control; the room had nothing to offer.
There was only the light-filled glass, thrusting out of the dense foam floor and disappearing behind the mirrored surface of the ceiling. (We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.) It was still glowing, but dim now, the dying embers of a fire that had burned too hot. She took a closer look at it because there was nothing else. It grew brighter, more important and shouldn’t she turn around now and see what he was doing?
She shifted her focus because the light was dangerous-a silent and delicate voice in her ear, convincing her that all the things she had always wanted to believe were true. She’d been right all along, it whispered in liquid words that flowed around any objections she put in their way, he was worth the risk.
Colonel O’Neill was still sitting on the floor, lacing up his boots like a new recruit being bellowed at by a red-faced TI. Too many eyelets and too many fingers that wouldn’t cooperate, she remembered the feeling well. He wiped his palms down the front of his BDU pants.
“Don’t look at the conduit,” she said, her words bouncing back from the wall and becoming the voice of a stranger in her ears. She didn’t like the way the stranger sounded, didn’t like the words it was saying because she wanted to look. She wanted him to look too so they could both forget again and-
The floor is firm but not uncomfortable. He’s on his back. She’s on top and the light is washing over them, highlighting their movements. She’s taking her time and she stops moving now and then just to look at him. He closes his eyes every time and she doesn’t understand why. There’s something there, just out of her reach. Something she doesn’t want to think about because his hands are on her hips pulling her closer. She leans down and kisses his face, his neck, his chest.
He’s always trusted her instincts, let her take the lead on situations he didn’t understand, but he usually wanted some sort of explanation whether or not he understood it. All she got from him now was a distracted, “Yeah, okay.” But his boots were tied and maybe that was something.
Aside from the transparent section, the wall was bare and uninteresting, broken only by the outline of a single door. No screens, no keypads or buttons, just an empty room with a door. She should have noticed that before. She’s certainly seen it a time or two.
They’re usually a lot more primitive but a cell is a cell, no matter the decor.
The sharp sound of Colonel O’Neill’s straps snapping shut across his chest followed her to the door. All dressed up and no place to go because they might just be trapped in here. Had they come in through the door? She didn’t know and it refused to tell her.
She gave the door a cursory once-over before using her hands to search for a means of opening it. Her well-calibrated fingertips picked out a slight concave anomaly in the center. As soon as she touched it, the door opened, sliding smoothly into the wall. If the room was a cell, she thought, it wasn’t a very good one. Except, the cynical part of her brain pointed out, it had been pretty damn effective in a Roach Motel kind of way.
When Colonel O'Neill stepped up beside her, giving her a slight nod to let her know he was ready for whatever was waiting on the other side, she hesitated. She wasn’t ready. Her head was too full of him and she needed a moment to compartmentalize.
"I just-," she didn't know how to finish the sentence. Her compartments were all full and overflowing, the crowded overhead bins of an overbooked flight. All the feelings she’d hidden away for a future that might never come threatened to crash down and bury her.
"Yeah." He pulled her tight to his chest. She could feel his heart beating a little too fast, too loud. "Me too," he whispered into her hair.
It’s a lot like drowning--she knows this for a fact-and she stepped through the door before she forgot who she was.
*******
The first step was the hardest. And wasn’t it always?
They stepped into the hall and her eyes narrowed in the bright light. It was like stepping out of a dark theater on a sunny day. Outside the room, the dry air moved reluctantly around them, resentful of the disturbance. She rubbed her arms, adjusting to the unexpected chill. She couldn’t tell if the hall was cold or the room had been too warm.
It was all relative so maybe it didn’t matter anyway.
The door whispered back into position behind them and the change was immediate. Whatever it was that had taken away their memories and inhibitions had stayed in the room, trapped behind the smooth metal door. The feelings were still there, hovering around her edges but her ability to control them had returned.
It was a fine line but one they’d learned to dance on a long time ago.
“Do you-,” she chewed on her lip, unsure of how to phrase the question. Still want me? “Feel better?” It wasn’t exactly right but he’d understand.
“Yeah,” he said. Of course, always.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, a united front, scanning the corridor for an attack that never came. Whatever had captured them didn’t seem to be concerned that they’d escaped and she was having a hard time deciding if that was good or bad. Overconfident or stupid--it was always hard to tell.
They’d certainly had their share of both.
The only company they had was their distorted reflections looking back at them from the slick metal that coated the walls, the floors, and the too distant ceilings. It was like being inside a ship made of poor-quality fun-house mirrors.
She took another look at the door they'd just stepped through. The door that seemed perfectly ordinary but shouldn’t have. "That's odd," she said, mostly to herself.
Concern. She felt the concern but it wasn’t hers.
“What?” he asked.
"The door." She shook her head; no, that wasn't right. It was more than the door. "The whole room. It’s-” It’s what? Impatience. “It’s out of scale with the rest of the ship." Because the ceiling was too far away, the corridor too wide, like they’d been built for something a lot larger than a couple of misplaced Earthlings.
She suddenly felt naked without her weapons.
Colonel O'Neill tipped his head back and waved at his rippling reflection, trying to distract her. Hey, look, Carter. Just another routine mission, nothing to worry about. But his jaw was tense and he was doing that thing with his hand that meant he was nervous. "I see what you mean," he said, still looking up.
The wide hall stretched out in front of them, inviting them to explore. Doors marched down its length, perfect little soldiers in formation on one side, erratic guerrilla fighters on the other. The asymmetric layout made her nervous. She’s always preferred balance.
They moved down the hall together, slowly and with no more conversation, falling back into routines honed to perfection over the years. Not looking for anything in particular, they stuck to the empty hall, ignoring the closed doors on either side.
Step lightly, keep an eye out for movement, listen to Colonel O’Neill’s breathing, be ready to run. Lather, rinse and repeat. It was a familiar pattern, requiring little thought and her mind took advantage of the time off to relax and catch its breath.
The memory was sharp, brittle around the edges and she froze mid-step.
They’re standing at the bottom of the ramp, waiting for the final chevrons to engage. It’s just the two of them. Colonel O’Neill is joking only it isn’t funny and they both know it. “Daniel probably just got them lost, Carter. You know how he is.”
She plays along because that’s what he expects her to do. Yes, sir. No, sir. Whatever you say, sir. It’s always the same and sometimes she hates it. “Sure, sir. That’s probably it.” Except Teal’c doesn’t get lost and he doesn’t let Daniel make important decisions and they were supposed to check in hours ago. It was always the easy missions that went to shit.
How could she have forgotten that?
Colonel O’Neill stopped when she stopped, also a familiar routine. They’d always been in sync like that. Even in the beginning, when field duty was still new and exciting. When things like muddy hair and sore muscles were the icing on the cake of interplanetary travel and alien technology. Such a change from the cold labs and stuffy offices where she’d spent the early years of her career.
Even her combat experience had been clean, impersonal. Killing the enemy from the air and going back to her own bunk at the end of each mission. She’d managed to keep the mirror shine on her boots throughout her entire deployment. The SGC had provided her with her first taste of war on an up-close and personal level.
"Sir." She frowned at the word. "We were looking for Daniel and Teal'c. Before-," she didn't finish the sentence because neither of them were ready to talk about the after. She wondered if they ever would be.
He gave her the look he usually reserved for Daniel when he started rambling about the cultural significance of anything and everything. She’d been on the receiving end of the same look once or twice during their early missions, but over the years, his listening-to-Carter-explain-science look had turned into something completely different. Something he never showed to Daniel.
She stuffed that thought behind the curtain, relieved that she could, and his expression shifted, almost to the one she’d been thinking of. There was a touch too much confusion in his eyes but it still made her ears feel warm and why was he looking at her like that?
He blinked and shook the look off of his face. "I can't remember," he said. But he was trying and again she could feel his frustration. If she hadn’t been so concerned about Daniel and Teal’c, that fact might have alarmed her. It stuck in her mind where it would stay until she had time to work out the puzzle.
She tried the radio, speaking softly and holding it close to her ear. There was no response.
We can not take your call at this time, please try again later.
It wasn’t enough to make her doubt that Teal’c and Daniel were on the ship but it did make her wonder what kind of shape they were in. Were they together? Had they forgotten who they were, where they belonged?
There was only one way to find out.
“We have to go back and check the other rooms.”
*******
The first one they tried was a large, complicated room on the guerrilla-fighter side of the ship. It made her feel like a nervous rat in a maze. One with no tasty cheese reward. Without the light from the conduit, the room was completely dark once the door closed and they had to search with flashlights.
The room was nothing like the one they started in. Even the walls were different, textured and colorful, and as far as she could tell, non-disappearing. The only thing it had in common with the first room was the conduit, but this one was broken. All the dangerous light was gone, escaped through a jagged hole in the side. Colonel O’Neill kicked at a piece of broken glass and it skittered across the floor with an unpleasant, crunchy sound that reminded her of insects.
“Something wasn’t happy in here,” he said.
The broken glass and the ragged claw marks on the walls were the only indication the room had ever been occupied. Sam got the sense that if there had been any furniture, it would have been broken too. Tossed about the room in a fit of rage.
“I guess not,” she said. And where was that something now?
They left the rat-maze room and Colonel O’Neill went to the evenly spaced doors on the other side. She looked down the hall, trying to get a sense of the size of the ship. Was there only this level or were there hundreds just like it, stacked like Legos. Little plastic bricks of uncertainty.
By the time she brought her attention back to Colonel O’Neill, he was standing in an open doorway, looking a little too confused.
“Shit.” She grabbed the back of his vest and pulled him away from the door, wondering if that was exactly what hadn’t happened the first time they’d opened a door on this ship. They’d probably walked right into the room. Just two little frogs in a pot of water, waiting for it to boil. He lost his balance, and they both landed hard against the far wall.
“Jesus, Carter,” he said. “Take it easy. I’m old.”
“Sorry, sir.” It was an unconvincing apology.
“Yes, well. I’m sure it was for the best.” He made a show of straightening his vest and flattening his hair. “Did you see anything?” he asked, even though he’d been the one staring into the room. What had he seen in there? How would the ship have trapped him if she hadn’t been along for the ride?
“No,” she said. The room was an exact copy of the one they’d started in, round and open, there was nowhere to hide. If Daniel or Teal’c were in there, she would have noticed.
They went through two more small rooms before trying another large one. She could tell right away the conduit was working, felt its pull low in her stomach, its voice whispering in her ear. Their exposure was brief, the door only open long enough for them to see the light, but it was enough to make her uncomfortable.
They took a moment to regroup behind the safety of the tightly sealed door.
Sam realized the problem immediately but Colonel O’Neill was the one to say it out loud. “We can’t go in there together,” he said. The sheen of sweat on his forehead was back even though the hall was cool. He leaned his back against the far wall, playing with his radio and staring at the floor with an unreadable expression.
“We’ll have to take turns,” she said because it was the obvious solution. And then, for reasons she didn’t entirely understand, “I’ll go first.”
She didn’t normally volunteer to be the first one into an unknown situation because that was a risk he liked to reserve for himself. It was something she resented the first few times it came up, suspicious that he didn’t trust her because she was a woman, or a scientist, or both.
When she ranted about it to Daniel after too many beers one night, he’d simply pointed out that Jack did the same thing to Teal’c who was quite clearly not female and also not a scientist. After she learned about his dead son, she thought maybe Colonel O’Neill still had a bit of a dark, suicidal streak in him.
She never mentioned that to Daniel.
*********
Sam was careful not to look directly at the conduit and that bought her some time, but not much. It was tucked in a corner, casting its light out into the room. Its cheerful glow wasn’t bright enough to fill the whole space and the high walls left areas of deep shadow that needed to be investigated.
She walked around the wall running through the middle of the room. The space on the other side was shadowed and gloomy like something out of a Scooby Doo episode. Her flashlight revealed nothing but emptiness. No scary monsters in sight. She was going to call back and tell Colonel O’Neill that the room was empty but the voice stopped her.
“Samantha.”
It’s been a long time, but she recognized it immediately. Remembered the way it sounded singing her to sleep, or reading A Wrinkle in Time over and over. When the owner of the voice stepped out of the shadows, she was more beautiful than Sam remembered. They’re almost the same age and that wasn’t right but those details seemed less important with each passing second.
Sam only doubted what she was seeing for a moment. The ship worked quickly, creating explanations and adding memories, filling in the gaps. Such small details that would have led to a different outcome. A different cab, an earlier flight. Later, Sam would get to replay those moments and work at separating them from the events that had actually happened.
“Mom?”
Her mother smiled at her, so real, so happy to see her. Sam knew her mother had been gone for more years than not but it still felt as though only a heartbeat had passed since they were together. There was so much Sam wanted to tell her. She’s seen and done so much that her mother would be proud of.
She took the first step toward the welcoming circle of her mother’s arms but never made it.
Something was dragging her backwards, away from her mother and it wasn’t fair. The image of her mother flickered for a moment and when it faded completely, it was like the day she died all over again.
“Let me go.” Her cheeks were wet and she hated to cry. It pissed her off and she pulled free of his grip, upsetting his balance in the process. She tried to go back to where her mother was standing but it was too late. She was gone. Again.
It was just as painful as the first time.
She wanted to sit on the floor and wait for her mother to come back, but Colonel O’Neill wouldn’t let her. He grabbed her around the waist and picked her up, half dragging, half carrying her back to the hall. He didn’t let her go until the door was long shut.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” was all he said. That’s when she knew things had gone too far. He never called her Sam anymore. Sam was for bad situations, a word she didn’t entirely trust from him. It was an apology all by itself.
She slid down to the floor and pulled her knees close enough to rest her forehead on them. Colonel O’Neill sat beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. “I really believed it was her,” she said.
He didn’t say anything and she let him hold her for awhile because why the fuck not.
*****
When the door opened on the first room that wasn’t empty, Sam was sure it was Teal’c inside, lying on the floor in a broken heap. Colonel O’Neill put his hand on her arm, gently turning her. “It’s not Teal’c,” he said. “It’s- Well, I don’t know what the hell that thing is but it’s definitely not Teal’c.”
He was right, and she would have come to that conclusion soon enough even if he hadn’t said anything. It didn’t occur to her until long after they’d actually found Teal’c to wonder why he’d said it at all.
They went in together because the conduit was broken and they could. The body on the floor was large; Sam figured it would have easily been twelve feet tall if it were standing. She pulled a flashlight out of her vest to get a better look. Her light was absorbed and reflected unevenly over the iridescent surface of its scaly bulk. Rainbows shimmered along its surface like oil on water.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said. Sometimes she thought about how much they’d seen and done, about all the planets they’d visited, the alien races they’d met. It seemed surreal. And still, here was this thing they’d never encountered and it was beautiful.
It reminded her just how big the universe really was.
*****
They moved on to the next large room and both stepped away from the door as soon as they saw the orange glow inside. Sam stood back, waiting for Colonel O’Neill to go in because it was his turn and she’d had enough loss for one day.
He seemed frozen, contemplative and hesitant. That got Sam’s attention because none of those things were in his playbook. She watched him standing just out of range of the sensors and breathing like it was a lot of work to keep the air moving in and out of his chest. She felt like she’d forgotten something important. Some critical piece of information hidden just out of reach, overshadowed by the fleeting image of her mother.
“Carter,” he finally said. “I can’t go in there.” He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead.
She wanted to tell him not to worry, that she had his back and wouldn’t let him get lost in there, but the look in his eyes stopped her. The overwhelming sense of loss and despair made her blink back tears.
Charlie.
Of course. How long had he been thinking about that, dreading it? There was no way she could let him go in there. Sam’s mother popped back into her mind for an encore performance, looking disappointed and lonely, reminding her that she didn’t want to go in the room either.
Still, they can’t go in together because the last time-
“Carter, what the hell just happened?”
She reaches down for her weapon but it’s not there. She knows they’re on a ship but she doesn’t recognize the design. “I think we’ve been kidnapped,” she quips. It’s not the first time and she’s not overly concerned.
There are doors all along the hall and before she can stop him, Colonel O’Neill walks up to one. It opens in front of him and she follows him into the room.
“Huh,” he says. “This is... different.”
And, yeah, it’s just a round room with a tube of light. By the time she notices the fuzziness creeping into her brain, it’s too late. When she turns to say something to him, he’s looking at her--really looking at her. He isn’t supposed to be looking at her like that, with that open, slightly panicked expression. The one that says he’s let go of that final thread of self-control.
Neither of them notice when the door slides shut.
There was only one safe option.
She took his hand, distracting him from his memories, wondering if some part of him wanted to go in and see his son again even if he knew it wasn’t real. He followed easily when she led him away from the door. “Let’s stick to the small rooms,” she said.
It was a gamble, but one she was willing to take.
******
It took three more tries to find something close enough to a familiar form to see what went wrong.
Sam got down on the floor, taking a closer look at the contorted shape. Its skin was taut and thin, stretched over bones that were almost human. A single wide eye set deep in the skull stared back at her. “It looks like it starved to death,” she said.
A sense of understanding that didn’t belong to her flashed in her mind. A small blip on a single frame of the film running through her head. Coca Cola! Always refreshing! I’ve seen this before! A butterfly net. She frowned at the body on the floor, wondering if it was truly as dead as it looked. Was it somehow projecting these things at her?
She jumped a little when Colonel O’Neill spoke in a voice that was too loud for the situation. “Carter,” he declared. “I know what this is.” He gestured at the room and beyond. “This ship.”
She waited for his explanation, sure that he had one and genuinely curious about what it would be. So far, neither the ship or the situation had made much sense to her. There was no order to it. No pattern. She hadn’t found a single thread to tie it all together.
“Did you ever collect bugs when you were a kid?” he asked.
********
They found Daniel first.
They could see him from the door, sitting on the floor with his shoulder resting on the glass. The warm light rippled across his face like sunshine over water and Sam almost forgot they were there to rescue him.
Colonel O’Neill took the first step but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. Had he forgotten already that she wasn’t going to let him go in? Didn’t he know she was afraid he wouldn’t come out?
“I’ll go,” she said.
She didn’t wait for an argument and tried not to think too hard about the powerful, unfamiliar urge to protect him that had been building in her mind.
The effects of the light were muted and easy to ignore as she crossed the small room. It was almost pleasant, the warm, easy feeling she got after two glasses of wine. She waved at Colonel O’Neill to let him know she was okay. He was standing close to the door, keeping it open so she couldn’t disappear. He waved back, and she could see the tension slide off his face. Her shoulders relaxed, releasing a tightness she hadn’t noticed until it was gone.
When she sat next to Daniel, he glanced in her direction, aware of her presence but not seeing her. She waited, watching a parade of expressions dance across his face. None of them were for her and when he spoke, the words were meant for someone else.
A few of the Abydonian words were familiar. She listened to his one-sided conversation longer than she needed to. It was a pretty language. Pretty and meaningless; she didn’t understand any of it. Sam had a great mind for numbers and puzzles but she’s always been crap at languages.
She reached for his shoulder and shook it gently. "Daniel?" He turned and looked at her through clear blue eyes that were supposed to be swimming behind glasses. Eyes that were still seeing the bright sand and pyramids of Abydos.
"Sha're?"
Sam winced and Colonel O’Neill stopped pacing the hall to look in at them. She could feel the weight of his attention in her chest.
She shook Daniel again. "Daniel, it's Sam."
As convincing as the illusions could be, they were tenuous. Daniel’s eyes became less distant as he focused on his unfamiliar surroundings. The look of contentment on his face was quickly replaced with one of confusion.
"I was on Abydos, with Sha’re." He said it quietly-maybe he was talking to himself-and there was such heartbreaking disappointment in his voice, she wished she had left him there a little longer.
It wasn’t fair that he had to lose her a third time.
*****
The next six rooms they checked were empty and Sam started to worry that Teal’c had been killed or left behind because of his symbiote. She caught Colonel O’Neill looking at her with a tight, strained look and she knew he was thinking the same thing.
Later, she’ll wonder which of them had the thought first.
When they finally opened the right door, they found Teal’c sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room, staring directly at the fierce, orange glow of the conduit. Challenging it and losing.
They sent Daniel in to get him and didn’t have to wait long before he led Teal’c into the hall, both of them looking like survivors of a cataclysmic event that had robbed them of their loved ones. In a way, she supposed, that was exactly what they were.
Teal’c gave the hall a cursory glance, looking a lot less concerned than she’d felt when she’d first stepped out of her cell. It only lasted a moment before his eyebrow went up in alarm. It was as close to panic as she’d ever seen on him.
"Something is wrong," he said.
Sam felt a fleeting urge to laugh at that. Because, yes, something was very wrong.
But Teal’c was right, there was something else. Something missing. There was so much out of place in her mind, she wasn’t sure she would have noticed if he hadn’t said anything.
"Your symbiote is gone." Sam could feel its absence. That small sense of something extra she felt around Teal’c was missing.
Teal'c lifted his shirt and ran a large hand over the smooth stomach underneath. There was no sign that he’d ever carried a symbiote. “How can this be?” he asked.
Her first thought was that maybe the symbiote had been given its own cell but when she looked at Daniel and realized that, despite not having his glasses, he hadn’t walked into any walls, she changed her mind.
Their abductors had been kind enough to fix them up before pinning them to a styrofoam board and sticking them in an old cigar box.
******
They stuck to the large central branch of the ship, starting from the back where all the holding cells were located and moving forward. Their rippling counterparts slid silently along the wall as they moved. She kept catching the movement in her peripheral vision and it made her jumpy.
They passed smaller corridors at regular intervals, branching out on either side like the outstretched arms of a long lost friend. Hey, nice to see you! It’s been a long time. Come, walk down these halls, I have a lot to show you...
They didn’t stray from path they were following, making an unspoken agreement to investigate those paths later. Assuming they lived to see a later. The ship felt empty, like a tomb, and Sam had already made up her mind that they were alone, but she was wary of the technology that might be thrown at them.
The central hall emptied into a room with a familiar arrangement of screens and workstations. Neat and orderly and evenly distributed. Just the sight of it made her feel better. They’ve been on a lot of alien ships and they all seem to have some version of this.
“I think we found the bridge,” she said.
Sam looked up to the clear dome high above her head. It made the size of the halls seem reasonable. When Daniel stepped into the center of the room, a viewscreen on the front wall came to life. Symbols that none of them recognized flashed and rotated around a central image that they were all familiar with.
“Are we-” Colonel O’Neill pointed to the screen.
Any hope of an easy trip home vanished at the sight. There’s no way of knowing how long they’ve been in hyperspace but it’s clear that their stargate home is long gone.
“I guess that rules out Plan B.”
Nobody bothered to ask about Plan A; they knew better.
*****
There were no chairs on the bridge.
Despite the large scale of the ship, the workstations were all at a comfortable standing height for humans. Sam imagined the owners of the ship with large, delicate spires sprouting from the top of their heads as she went around examining each station. There were no buttons or switches, just a smooth glass panel that remained dark despite her groping and tapping. If they could gain access to the ship’s systems, there was a chance they could fly it home. A small chance, perhaps, but it was all they had.
She could feel Colonel O’Neill’s eyes following her around the room while she listened to Daniel try and piece together the chain of events of their last mission. She made her way back to them, leaving the unresponsive screens for later.
“I remember leaving the SGC with Teal’c,” Daniel was saying. “We were headed for a village. It was supposed to be empty.”
Teal’c nodded in agreement. His hand kept drifting to the front of his shirt. “I do not recall reaching the village,” he said.
“No,” said Daniel. “Neither do I.”
“We didn’t hear from you two after the initial radio contact,” Sam added. “We sent a UAV.” She had only just remembered that part. It hadn’t done much good. Was the UAV still there? Had it recorded their abduction?
“I thought you got lost.” Colonel O’Neill tapped the face of his watch and held it up to his ear. “Huh,” he said. “My watch stopped.”
Daniel looked at his own watch and poked it once for good measure. “Mine too,” he said. He stared at his watch a moment longer. “I wonder how long we’ve been here?”
Daniel kept talking but Sam was thinking about the way Colonel O’Neill’s face had felt like it had been too long since it had seen a razor. How her thumb had dragged over his his rough cheek. Had he left marks on the sensitive skin of her breasts, the inside of her thighs? A little reminder for her to find later.
Daniel interrupted her thoughts. “Sam?” he said, like he’d said it more than once.
“I’m sorry, Daniel. What were you saying?”
She glanced at Colonel O’Neill. He was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets and an apology on his face like he’d known exactly what she’d been thinking about.
“Did you find Jack or did he find you?”
"Neither,” she told him. “We were in the same room.” Why that was, she hadn’t figured out but it was probably the reason they were able to break free from the keep-the-bugs-happy technology.
It seemed like a lucky break at the time.
******
Even after sharing all their pieces, the puzzle was full of holes and missing edges. They’d been transported to the ship, that much was clear. Why and by whom they could only guess.
They needed more information and there was only one way to get it. “We need to go back and do a more thorough search of the ship,” she said. One of those unexplored corridors might be holding the secret to their ticket home.
Colonel O’Neill nodded in agreement. “We’ll pair up,” he paused, looking at each of them. “ I’ll take Daniel.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say but she was relieved. Sam was grateful for the chance to put some distance between herself and Colonel O’Neill. She walked off the bridge thinking that while she might be a little bit in love with Colonel O’Neill, and she’s always had the most in common with Daniel, Teal’c still managed to be her favorite.
“And, Carter?” Colonel O’Neill called out as they left.
“Sir?”
“Stay the hell away from those containment cells.”
********
Teal’c and Sam covered the corridors on the left side of the ship.
Most of the doors refused to open for them. She tried every trick she could think of but they remained stubbornly closed. They even tried prying one open because it always worked in the movies but the metal was too smooth and there was nothing to grip.
She smacked the door that was currently ignoring her. “What sense does it make to lock so many doors when the bridge is wide open.”
Teal’c tipped his head and lifted a questioning eyebrow in her direction. Major Carter, it said, I do believe you are overreacting. Teal’c let the eyebrow speak for itself and chose some more diplomatic words to say aloud. “Accessing the bridge did not seem to provide us any advantage,” he said.
That was true, but the thought of what lived behind the closed doors continued to nag at her.
Like the bridge, the next room they gain access to is one that Sam would have kept locked.
The room was vast and underfurnished. There are only three ships, sitting close together and looking like the last lonely egg in the carton. Rectangular forcefields skirted the edges, waiting to open and usher them to freedom.
“I think these are escape pods,” she said. It was an understatement. They were ships really, large enough for the four of them and more advanced than anything they’d ever escaped in.
She stopped examining the ships and rubbed her temples. Her eyes felt dry and her head was starting to hurt like some large set of hands was slowly crushing it.
“Are you feeling unwell?” asked Teal’c. He put a hand on her shoulder and she leaned into it, grateful for the contact.
“I’m fine, Teal’c. I think I’m just getting a headache.”
He didn’t believe her, but that was okay because it wasn’t true.
********
The last room that opened for them was the cafeteria.
It was lined with smoked glass panels and nothing else. Sam thought the panels were decorative until she walked too close to one and it scanned her. The unpleasant tingling wasn’t new to her and she cursed under her breath. Teal’c ran to her side but she waved him off. No sense in both of them getting zapped. Who knew what it would do to them?
A moment passed, then another. She didn’t melt or disintegrate or any number of other horrible things she’d been considering. The glass just lit up and a small tray materialized. There were unpleasantly colored wafers sitting on the tray alongside a cup of clear liquid.
“What do you think, Teal’c?” She picked up the cup and sniffed at it. It was odorless. She wasn’t naive enough to think that meant it wasn’t dangerous so she stuck a finger in it. Nothing happened. “Does this look like a Happy Meal to you?”
********
Her head was pounding by the time they got back to the empty bridge.
Sam felt more relief than she should have when Colonel O’Neill and Daniel showed up, like it wasn’t all hers, and another piece of the puzzle slid into place. It was a good piece too. All the interruptions in her head, the new, confusing feelings, started to make more sense.
Well, fuck. Didn’t they have enough to deal with?
“Look what we found,” Colonel O’Neill announced as he entered, P90 in one hand and Teal’c’s staff weapon in the other. His words were light, easy and relaxed, and the exact opposite of the expression on his face.
Daniel followed close behind, dragging their rucksacks and muttering something under his breath. Probably something about having to carry all their gear by himself. Sam grabbed hers from the pile Daniel had made and sat on the floor with it.
Weapons were always good, but at the moment, Sam was more interested in the bottle of Excedrin she kept stashed in her rucksack. Just the thought made her head feel better. Her headache settled into a dull ache while she was digging through her pack. It continued to fade while she washed the pills down with lukewarm canteen water.
“We found the crew quarters too,” said Daniel. “Wait till you see them.” Sam was sure he thought that was more interesting than finding their weapons.
“They have bathrooms,” Colonel O’Neill added. “I guess everything has to pee eventually.”
There was a brief moment of silence to thank the greater powers in the Universe that they wouldn’t need to improvise on that front. They’d done it before and it hadn’t been pretty.
“Major Carter and I found escape pods,” Teal’c said.
Daniel and Colonel O’Neill looked hopeful but only because they didn’t know that the small ships had ignored her just as soundly as the equipment on the bridge. “Can we escape in them?” asked Daniel.
“Perhaps,” Teal’c told him. “Many of them were missing.”
They were all quiet for a minute, each wondering what had driven the ship’s occupants to abandon it. “I’ll see what I can do with them,” said Sam. She was already convinced that there was nothing she could do, that they would remain dark and useless, but it seemed cruel to let them know that so soon.
*******
She waited until they ran out of things to share before approaching him.
He was staring at the main screen, watching their chances of getting home pass by in a shimmering blur. She stood next to him, wondering when she had become so pessimistic. Had it been all at once or a slow transition? She couldn’t remember.
“Sir,” she said. “Can I talk to you?”
It was an odd request, she knew that and so did he. Still, he answered like it was a perfectly normal thing for them to do. “Sure, Carter,” he said. “What’s up?”
Daniel and Teal’c were still going through their rucksacks and probably wouldn’t pay much attention to them but she wanted to make sure they had some privacy. “Outside?” she asked.
“Yeah, okay.” He nodded and followed her toward the hall, stopping to talk to Teal’c and Daniel on the way. “Hey, Carter and I are going to go...for a walk.”
There was no door on the bridge so they walked down the main hall until they were well out of earshot. Sam paced around until he started to get fidgety. His impatience grated on her nerves, making it harder to jump into the conversation they needed to have.
“Sir,” she finally said. “This may sound weird but I think I can feel-,” what, exactly? “I think I can feel...whatever you’re feeling.”
He wasn’t surprised and she thought she caught a whiff of guilt. She should have guessed it was a two-way street. “I was hoping it was just me,” he said.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” It wasn’t like he’d ever been open about what went on in his head but she felt obligated to ask.
He just shrugged and kept talking like she should have known better than to ask. “Well,” he said, “I guess it’s not the biggest problem we have right now.”
“No, I guess not.” He was right, they still had a reluctant ship to conquer. It was a little weird, especially now that she knew it was affecting him too but it was something they could deal with. Something that wasn’t going to kill them, anyway. She hoped.
“Maybe it’ll wear off,” he said.
“Sure,” she said, and at the time, she believed it. If not while they were on the ship, surely it would wear off when(if) they ever got home.
It doesn’t wear off, and it might not be their biggest problem yet, but it will be.