sleeping now
sleeping now
by kitty
Summary: the ice is trying to reclaim him, and how does she deal with that?
Category: Angst, Missing Scene/Epilogue
Episode Related: 721 Lost City
Season: future Season
Pairing: Jack/Sam
Rating: FAM
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
Archived on: 2004-07-29
All is white as she hovers above the snow. The sky is cloudless and the sun is reflected back to her brilliantly. She is blinded for a moment, but then she can see a shape. A small, black hollow in the ice. She nears the crawlspace slowly, flying all the while. The opening is just wide enough for her shoulders. The ice in the tunnel that she finds is almost blue and it is freezing once she is hidden from the rays of the sun. And it is dark. But there is something down here, she knows. She knows this because she remembers this place. She doesn't need to touch the sides as she descends, to scrabble and slip as she did once before; this time she is flying and it doesn't bother her that it is an impossibility.
Now that she is at the bottom of the steep tunnel, she changes trajectory and she flies parallel to the frozen ground. All is snow here also. It might as well be an Ice Planet. There is little else. Save for a bundle of dark shapes near the foot of the glacial wall she has just descended. The outline shifts and she suddenly knows what it is. Who it is. She pauses in her flight to watch them for a moment.
She sees herself, giggling against his chest. It is almost cold enough to freeze the breath in their lungs and so they are lying together in a position that would not be permitted otherwise. They have rarely allowed themselves to be this close since.
Beyond them is the Stargate, drained by time of the energy that is needed to get them back home. They think they will die here. They very nearly did. But as they lie together he forgets that, because he thinks that she is someone else, someone that always had the power to get him through anything. "Sara?" But she is not this someone. Then, and again now, she wishes that she were the one to be his last thought before he dies. It is his confused, weak mind as he dies that means that she can say to him, "I'm here, Jack," even though she knows that she can never say that to him.
She had nearly died, inches away from him. And that is exactly where she wants to be when it happens.
But for now she moves on, because she knows that they both survived and that this is only the beginning of their story.
It ends not too far away. She has passed the Stargate and moved on into darkness, but it is still cold and there is still ice. There are lights that coat the snow in colours. Stark shadows reveal patterns of green, yellow, pink, and blue, patterns cast from coloured glass of some sort. She knows what this cold room is and she doesn't want to be here, doesn't want to see the last chapter.
She has come to a floating rest now and her body is vertical. Nothing visible confines her to this spot in the air, but she is unable to move however much she wishes to be elsewhere, back in that cavern giggling against his chest. Maybe they could start over? Maybe then it wouldn't end this way?
Finally she resigns herself to looking at that which she fears is before her. He is nearly as close now as he was back there when she pretended to be his ex-wife to ease his suffering. But this time he is even closer to death. He is frozen almost at that very point, encased in a block of something like ice that will preserve him indefinitely by virtue of the alien technology that surrounds him, tinting her face pink and green.
His expression is blank as he stares back at her from his prison. Fate had been eating away at his consciousness for days now and, for all she knows, the part of him that recognised her might have been dead long before he entered the ice. He might have been looking at her with eyes registering nothing of her identity, nothing of what she had been to him, for hours before this. She doesn't know. And now she wonders. His body might just be hanging on, but what if his mind has already gone?
He'd regret dying; she knows that about him. But he'd regret living if he weren't truly himself; she knows this also. He'd been resistant to the idea of implantation, sharing his body with a Goa'uld or Tok'Ra. But having his body and mind controlled by the Ancients is no different, surely? She knows, however, that in the split second before he'd allowed this to happen, he'd chosen to do it because it would save them. And he had been their salvation. Again. One last time. Isn't that enough? Can't he go to sleep now? His mind has gone, so shouldn't she let his body go?
Then something minute in his eyes changes and suddenly she thinks that she was wrong. What if he is in there, his mind intact, seeing and understanding everything, silently screaming to get out, silently because his body is frozen? She let them put him in it. What if he is screaming for her to let him out?
Suddenly the worst thing she can imagine is happening. He is alive and he jolts awake. He blinks once and his chest raises in a rhythm again. His eyes are darting to the left and right, desperately trying to understand what is happening to him. Where is he? What does he remember last? He remembers her, Carter, calling him Jack. And she is there, in front of him, on the other side of the chilly divide. But it seems to him that she doesn't see that he is all right, doesn't see that she doesn't have to keep him in here any longer.
She is horror-stricken and can't move. He is alive. She has buried him alive. He has been in a grave, and has known that that is where he is, for days. How many days since the cold closed in around him and swallowed him alive? How much damage to his body and mind, knowing all this time that he is in his tomb? How much damage knowing that she did it to him?
He shouts to her, but the sound doesn't travel well through the ice. "Carter!" he is screaming, pounding with raised fists on the transparent wall before him. A wave of claustrophobia hits him and he panics. "Out! Out! I want out! Get me out!" His fists aren't making even the slightest crack and he thinks then that he will never get out of here. That he will truly die here. That the icy death that they evaded so many years ago in this place has come back to claim him. That she has killed him.
She sits bolt upright in her bunk and has a hand to her chest. It is freezing in here but she is covered in a light sweat and her head throbs from a night fever. She has been dreaming and is terrified of the dark for a moment before she realises that she has indeed awoken. But the nightmare has planted doubts in her usually rational mind and she knows that she wont sleep again until she sees him to make sure. Make sure what? That he is still frozen? That, for all intents and purposes, he is dead? She knows that that isn't what she wants. She wants him here with her in the cold, a shoulder to rest her head on, a body to warm her own against the bite of the ice. But she can't withstand the crushing thought that he is alive in his own grave. Better that he were dead in there. Then she hates herself for thinking it.
She unzips her sleeping bag and slips quietly down from the top bunk. She is alone in the room, but she moves stealthily nonetheless and for reasons she doesn't entirely understand. She pulls snow boots on over the thick socks that she has worn even in bed and shrugs into a woollen jumper and then a jacket. These are luxuries that she didn't have the last time she was under this much ice. Her heart is still cold, however, as she leaves her room and moves out into the corridor.
All is dull metal. Temporary walls have been erected, but there is an ongoing process of constructing a second Antarctica research facility for the teams currently sleeping in the quarters around her own. The silence about her is unnerving, the only sounds those of the low humming of the fluorescent lighting strips overhead and the creaking of the ancient ice as it shifts about them.
She knows when she has reached the room; the depressing military architecture of the facility corridors suddenly opens out onto the furnishings of the Ancients. There are the carved screens and the soft lights that cast beautiful shadows and patches of green, yellow, pink, and blue. There is the chair in the centre, and though she is fascinated by the technology she is also resentful of it. It is the reason that all this happened.
She is freezing, but she hugs her arms to her chest against a cold dread within, not without, as she nears the ice-like shield in front of the colonel. He has not moved. She'd known that really. But as she looks up into the empty eyes she knows that she had to check. Make sure that he is not aware of his prison, that he is numbed to what is happening to him. Make sure that his suffering has ended, that he can sleep.
She remembers words he whispered to her years ago. "Cold. It's cold." And she moves nearer, placing a trembling hand onto the ice above his chest where she had once laid her head and said, "It's all right. You can sleep now."
"I miss you," she manages to say to the darkness, surprising herself that her voice is even working, her words curling from her mouth and evaporating in the cold before they reach him, "...so much." She is blinking back a tear and she swallows resolutely before continuing. "And I don't know what to do." She takes in a deep breath and inclines her head to one side, a sob creasing her brow. She remembers that she felt this useless and desperate when they were trapped under the ice before. She speaks slowly, her words enunciated purposefully, because she knows that if she does not control herself she will break down again. "I have tried everything."
It's only been a week, but she has sent teams to every Asgard-protected planet for which they have co-ordinates. But holographic images of broad-shouldered men in Norse armour rippled and gave way to darkness, the Asgard High Council unresponsive to their pleas. General Hammond himself is even now flying The Prometheus into deep space to boost the signal indicating their distress, and they have been gone for days. She knows that they will return unsuccessful, and that she will then go herself. She has the feeling that something awful is happening with the Replicators.
They have been unable to contact the Tok'Ra; not even her own father answers. She has no idea what sort of assistance any of their alien allies can offer, but she tries anyway. It is as if an entire galaxy of potential help has crashed down about her. No one is out there.
For days she has had teams of medics, mechanics, archaeologists, linguists, and engineers pouring over this coffin, inspecting every square centimetre in a vague hope that somewhere it will tell her what to do next. Despite the men and women around her, she feels desperately alone, standing and staring for a moment among a sea of constant movement, as if she is alone in working for his release. But Teal'C is there with her, a large comforting hand to her wrist to shake her out of any defeatism, and Daniel has looked up from where he works with a team of linguists. She blinks, offers a smile to them that is nothing like the smiles she used to give, and then goes back to the control crystals, trying to learn enough to save him. She feels like she is his sole hope.
"...and it's not enough."
She raises her gaze from her own useless hand to his glassy eyes, and she almost can't see for the tears. She knows that he was right; it was worth it. The immediate threat to the planet is gone, and he did that, he saved them. But it was a sacrifice that she didn't want him to give. Was it really worth losing him? He looks so sad, like he has given up. He had looked that way for days. Even when she had gone to his house to tell him everything, they had been defeated. Again. As always.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"Sam?"
She doesn't know how long she has been standing there before Daniel is at the entrance to the room, calmly saying her name to shake her out of wherever it is her mind has taken her. He's not to know that she is giggling against the colonel's chest, or that for a second she thinks that it is the colonel's voice, and is then deflated when she blinks away tears to see that his lips haven't moved.
"Can't sleep again?" Daniel asks her when she finally acknowledges his presence and lowers her hand. "I heard you dreaming." He is at her elbow now, looking up at Jack when she doesn't meet his concerned gaze. "There's still lots we can do," he reminds her gently. Distantly, she finds herself nodding slowly. "It's only been a week. We'll get through to the Asgard."
"Yeah," she manages, though somewhere in her mind she can hear the mechanical whine of the Replicators, like a herald of things to come. Then she turns towards him slightly to say, "I just think too much." She tries a weak smile and then lowers her chin to hide her vulnerability from him.
Daniel has a hand on her arm and he is dipping his head to catch her gaze and reassure her. "We've translated enough of the markings on this thing to be able to read his vitals and the medics say he's in no danger like this." She knows this, but he sees that she needs to hear it again, from a friend in the dead of night when she worries the most. "His level of brain activity has frozen so low that they know he's not aware of any of this, Sam." He squeezes her arm affectionately. "He's not suffering at all."
She takes a deep breath and nods, swallowing, trying to make herself believe it. "I know," she says, but she sounds anything but confident to him.
"Sam?"
She is nodding more fervently now and her voice is a little surer as she says, "yes."
But when she lifts her eyes they are moist with tears and so Daniel wraps his arms around her. She clings to him, balling his padded jacket in her fists and hiding her face against the thick turtleneck of his jumper. He has a hand on the back of her head and he wonders if Jack ever held her like this. His eyes slide across to the frozen body of his friend and he hopes that one day he will be able to.
She becomes stiff against him when she realises that she has been there for a long time and Daniel lets her pull back. She looks pale and tired and as though she has been existing in shadow for the past couple of days. He wipes a tear away from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. "Come on," he says at length, "let's go get Teal'C and have an early breakfast."
"It's two thirty in the morning," she points out as she puts the back of her hand to her nose and sniffs. She reminds him then of a lost little girl and he has rarely seen her like that. "But hot milk would be great." There is the faintest of smiles, but it's there and it's a start.
"Okay," Daniel smiles back. He makes a move to leave the room, but he sees her take another glance up at Jack. "He's okay," he reassures her once more. "He'll be okay."
She turns back to him and he can see in her eyes that she knows that he will, because she'll make it happen. The team is hers now and she'll make them make it happen. And when she doubts her abilities she can come back here and reassure herself that he is all right while she finds a way to get him back.
The ice tried to take them away from each other once before and failed; it isn't going to beat them this time either. He might be sleeping now, but it will not be for long.
If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to kittyor post a commenton this story.
Heliopolis Main Archive
A Stargate: SG-1 Fanfiction Site
sleeping now
by KittySite Navigation
Support Heliopolis