Part Two
For a moment, Jack is certain he’s back in stasis, only there is far too much pain. He’s on fire, sharp piercing pains like he’s got a thousand bugs biting him all over. Above the agony there are voices and he forces himself to concentrate on them, anything that can distance him from the ache.
“Maybe if we had more time…the infection’s just moving too fast.” A man’s voice.
“What if I could give you more time?” Sam. He recognizes that voice as Sam’s.
He remembers this. There is a hand in his and he somehow works up the energy to squeeze it.
The light changes around him and he realizes his eyes are open. Sam leans over him, her face worn and so, so tired. But alive. So very alive. “Jack.” He hates the desperate edge to her voice.
“No,” he whispers, squeezing her hand again.
“He’s delirious,” offers the man’s voice.
“Sam,” he says, his eyes latching on to hers. “No ice.”
“Jack, how did you-.”
“No. Ice,” he repeats.
“It might be the only way to save your life.” She’s pleading and he knows now why he acquiesced that first time. He’s never been able to say no to her, never been able to willingly leave her behind.
But this time it’s her life he’s trying to save.
“Promise me,” he demands, his grip on her hand now almost painful.
Tears well up in her eyes, tears he knows she is too strong to actually let fall.
“Please,” he says, his strength beginning to bleed away at a rate that tells him he has very little time left.
But just before he loses consciousness he sees her nod, lowering down to press her lips to his face. “I promise.”
He’s sorry. So sorry to be leaving her like this.
But then the familiar black descends and he’s out of time for regrets.
* * *
The excruciating pain of ice breaking and flowing through his veins greets him, Vala’s face looming above him.
It’s not until they are on the ship, ripping towards the cemetery that was once Cheyenne Mountain that everything finally clicks.
This isn’t right. He shouldn’t be here. Not again.
Vala runs through the same routine she preformed the first time, but all Jack can think is: she lied.
When the wormhole surges into life, he turns to Vala and says, “Send me back further this time.”
Vala doesn’t look confused; she just stares intently at him for a long moment before nodding.
They don’t speak again.
* * *
He’s in the middle of digging through a drawer when the white flash recedes. His hands pause mid-motion as he tries to place himself. The room he recognizes as his own, the townhouse he had purchased in Washington. Pajama pants hang from his fingers, so he pulls them on, one hand coming to a stop on the small black smudge low on his hip and barely visible in the dim light.
They will call it The Stain.
Turning to the rest of the room, Jack notices a newspaper sitting on top of his bedside table. He clicks the lamp on, his eyes latching on to the date.
July 24, 2007.
If his spotty memory can be trusted, that date gives him one day until he first falls prey to the more undeniable effects of the disease.
Jack opens the single drawer in the bedside table and reaches in for his gun, still sitting right were he left it. He checks the ammo and sits on the edge of his bed in the small pool of light offered by his lamp, running through what he remembers.
Tomorrow, on the way to a budget meeting, he will stumble in the middle of a crowded hall. Hands of strangers, passing airmen, will reach out and grab him, but he won’t feel them. He’ll be too lost in oppressive buzzing, the ache of something crawling under his skin.
Later he will wake to find Sam by the side of his bed, her face drawn with lack of sleep. She’ll try to smile, to hide the fact that no one knows anything other than the certainty that he will die. She will beg, he will acquiesce (or not) and enter the tomb of ice.
Suspended life, leeching death.
Jack lifts the gun, fighting off the deja vu of another time and place, of the familiar smell of gun oil and bile.
He’s not afraid to die.
Sitting on the edge of his bed with a gun against his skin, he only thinks of what his death will do to them, the people he’s leaving behind. He’ll be saving them. But they’ll never know.
I’m saving the future.
What a suicide note that would make.
A sudden sound somewhere behind him has Jack cursing under his breath. He’s honestly managed to forget in all the chaos that she was staying with him this week.
He turns his head to find Sam in the doorway, framed by the light of the bathroom, staring frozen at the gun in Jack’s hand.
Shit.
Do it, part of his brain screams. Do it before it’s too late!
But blowing his brains out while Sam watches was never part of the deal.
It’s even worse, because suddenly he can remember with painful clarity how this evening had unfolded differently the first time.
She wraps her arms around him from behind, hands sliding across his chest and body curling up behind his. He imagines she can feel the rumble of his words as he speaks lowly. He knows that if he can make her laugh, she’ll press her smile against the back of his neck, her laughter a warm whisper across his skin. He lifts her hand and presses his lips to her palm, breathing in the scent of her skin.
“Jack,” she breathes, her other hand contracting against his stomach, nails trailing gently.
But the memory dissolves as quickly as it rose, leaving him with a gun in his hand and bitter words on his tongue. “What if I said the only way to save the future was to end my life right here?”
She takes a few careful steps toward him, her face betraying none of the panic he knows must be racing through her mind.
“I’d say we could find another way,” she answers slowly.
“And if there isn’t?”
She has no answer for that, and Jack is almost overwhelmed by the urge to tell her everything, to not carry this horrible responsibility by himself. He feels the gun slip, falling just a few inches.
“If I don’t do this now, it could be too late,” he explains, but he knows he’s trying to convince himself more than her. “If I wait to see if that genius brain of yours can come up with another solution, I might be too far gone to do it myself. You’d have to do it.”
Her gaze is almost painful now and he knows his words are little more than background noise to her, a layer of confusion building upon her panic.
“Do you think you could do that?” he asks.
“If I had to,” she says, surprising him.
Jack doesn’t even realize the anger is there until the harsh laugh escapes him. “You’ve made that promise before.”
She’s stunned by that remark, but her own frustration wins out. “Jack, what is going on?”
When he feels the gun fall uselessly to the mattress, he knows he’s missed his chance. So instead he gives in to the urge to tell her, repeating everything he’s experienced since first waking to find Vala kneeling over him.
She sits across the room in a plush chair, her face emotionless throughout the entire litany. He tries to remember that only five minutes ago she was living with an entirely different Jack, one ignorant of their future. He wishes he could remember who that was.
He wishes he could say he was kidding, erase this distance between them and let himself pretend. He wishes that wishes actually meant anything.
Sam believes him. She doesn’t want to, but he can see that she does. She pushes to her feet, pacing the small room and asks question after question, ferreting out every small detail.
No matter how short he gets with her, or how obnoxious, she keeps her cool, jotting notes down and waking colleagues with phone calls about ‘hypothetical situations.’ And every time he leaves the room, he feels her eyes following him, judging, as if she expects him to pick up his gun to finish this if she lets him out of her sight.
The next morning he cancels his meetings, not unaware of the irony of calling in sick on this particular day of all days. He almost laughs at this, but he catches sight of Sam sitting at the kitchen table, staring blankly at scribbled sheets of paper. He begins to think it would have been kinder to blow his brains out.
They walk down the street to a small café, more out of a desire to escape being trapped with each other than a need for breakfast. It’s a terrible idea, no matter the reason. The voices of the other patrons scratch against him and he feels penned in, under assault after the emptiness of the future and the chamber. He sits there, though, sits there sipping his coffee and thinks about how he killed all these people.
“This isn’t fair,” Sam says suddenly, breaking at least two solid hours of silence.
“Nothing ever is when the fate of the galaxy is in the balance,” Jack replies, shooting for humor and missing the mark by a mile.
She lifts her eyes from the table. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
He looks at her in confusion.
“You’re angry with me for something I haven’t done.”
“Not yet,” he qualifies before he can stop himself.
She straightens abruptly as if he’s just reached across the table and struck her. After one last long stare, she abandons the table, leaving him sitting there, staring at her untouched coffee and wondering if maybe Vala messed up the thawing process. Because feeling anything at all is suddenly a terrible chore.
She doesn’t go far, just back to his townhouse and her table covered in theories.
He sits across from her, wanting to apologize, to reach out and soften the harsh angles of her shoulders. He doesn’t do either, his hands remaining frozen in his lap.
“I’ve been trying to make sense of this, over and over again,” Sam eventually says, pushing up from the table and wrenching open the refrigerator just to stare at the contents. “How could you have been infectious in stasis? And how did the disease spread so completely, so quickly? Even to worlds never visited by us? Not to mention the isolated populations that don’t even have Stargates.”
She slams the door back shut, leaning against it. “It doesn’t sound like a disease, Jack. It sounds like genocide.”
Jack feels his pulse increase, though whether from the implication of her words or the rising heat of his sickening body that he’s trying to hide from her, he can’t be sure. “You’re saying someone did this on purpose?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
It certainly wouldn’t. But right now it doesn’t really matter why or how. All that matters is Jack’s place in this. “So do you think they might be right? Did my stasis do this?”
Sam turns her back on Jack, leaning over the sink and staring out the window. “I just need more time. Maybe some blood samples.”
He takes her non-answer to mean yes. “That’s what you always say.”
When he tries to stand, it’s pretty clear that time is the one thing they don’t have anymore. He stumbles, his legs refusing to bear his weight. Before he can hit the floor, Sam’s hand is on his arm, and he prays she’ll keep her promise this time, tries to beg for it, but his tongue is thick in his mouth as everything fades.
When he wakes up in a hospital bed, he feels rage building, tearing at his skin. Apparently anger is an emotion not beyond the abilities of his empty chest.
Sam sits by his bed, unapologetic. His visible fury doesn’t crack her emotionless façade, but she does pull back the sleeve of her shirt, revealing a black stain forming on her flesh.
“It already spread,” he rasps.
She pulls a gun from somewhere and leans over him. “Just tell me to, and I’ll do it. I’ll keep my damn promise.”
The burning fire in her eyes is like a shot to the gut for him. His mouth opens and closes on words he knows he should say, but he can’t ignore the fact that even if he dies right now, it won’t save her.
He finds that unacceptable, no matter the confusion, distance and anger that make everything about her cloudy in his mind. He won’t be responsible for her death.
He places his hand on the muzzle and pushes down, the gun dropping to her side. He slides up to touch her hand, but her skin is ice under his.
“Put me back in the stasis chamber,” he says.
He’ll go back even earlier. And next time he has a gun in his hand, he won’t hesitate. He won’t be weak enough to burden her with this again.
Maybe he’ll actually learn from his mistakes.
* * *
He’s tired. So damn tired. But something is slapping at his face, chasing away sleep.
“Jack!”
His eyes peel open to find Sam’s face wavering just inches from his, a black stain now covering a large part of her once creamy skin. How much time has passed? Where, when is he?
He can see her lips moving, the sound trailing behind as if distorted. She says it at least three times before the consonants finally tumble together and begin to make sense.
“It’s not you, Jack. You didn’t do this.”
He tries to move his mouth, to lean into the warmth he is finally beginning to realize is Sam’s hand cupping his face. He’s so tired of being cold.
“You’re not the source of the disease, Jack.”
Her eyes burn an intense blue as she repeats it over and over again, urgently. He knows these words are important somehow. But then there is a flash, the press of coldness and blackness.
Fix this…